Abstract

ANDREU-RODRIGUEZ, José Manuel; PENA-FERNANDEZ, María Elena  and  LOZA, Wagdy. Predicting risk of violence through a self-appraisal questionnaire. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context [online]. 2016, vol.8, n.2, pp.51-56. ISSN 1989-4007.  https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpal.2016.03.001.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a self-report that predicts the risk of violence and recidivism and provides relevant information about treatment needs for incarcerated populations. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the concurrent and predictive validity of this self-report in Spanish offenders. The SAQ was administered to 276 offenders recruited from several prisons in Madrid (Spain). SAQ total scores presented high levels of internal consistency (alpha = .92). Correlations of the instrument with violence risk instruments were statistically significant and showed a moderate magnitude, indicating a reasonable degree of concurrent validity. The ROC analysis carried out on the SAQ total score revealed an AUC of .80, showing acceptable accuracy discriminating between violent and nonviolent recidivist groups. It is concluded that the SAQ total score is a reliable and valid measure to estimate violence and recidivism risk in Spanish offenders.

Keywords : Self-Appraisal Questionnaire; Violence risk; Concurrent and predictive validity.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )