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Gender and perceptions of dangerousness in civil psychiatric patients
Author(s) -
Elbogen Eric B.,
Williams Angela L.,
Kim Doyoung,
Tomkins Alan J.,
Scalora Mario J.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
legal and criminological psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 2044-8333
pISSN - 1355-3259
DOI - 10.1348/135532501168299
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , psychiatry , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , poison control , occupational safety and health , clinical psychology , context (archaeology) , medicine , medical emergency , paleontology , pathology , neuroscience , biology
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender and clinicians' judgments of dangerousness in civil psychiatric facilities. Methods. Eighty‐one clinicians working in acute, chronic or crisis settings rated violence risk of actual patients, rendering a total of 648 judgments of dangerousness. Results. Statistical analyses revealed the expected higher ratings of dangerousness for male compared to female patients, but also showed a significant interaction between clinician's gender and patient's gender on judgments of dangerousness. Conclusions. One of the most interesting findings in this study was that female clinicians perceived a greater gender gap in violence potential among psychiatric patients than did male clinicians. In fact, male clinicians perceived male and female patients to show approximately the same risk of violent behaviour. The results raise important questions for future risk assessment research and for clinical decision‐making in the context of civil commitment.