The Quality of Violence Risk Formulation and a Quasi-Forensic Mental Health Training Experiment

Objectives: The study was aimed at measuring the impact of training on forensic case formulation in mental health and to provide more evidence on the reliability of the TEC-F.

Method: Nine psychiatrists and six psychologists from various Latin American countries participated in a quasi-pedagogical experiment. The quality of formulations was independently and blindly measured pre- and post-intervention with the TEC-F and the assignment of two standard vignettes was also randomly manipulated. Quality mean differences and instrument reliability indicators were calculated.

Results: The values of intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.92; 0.94; 0.83; 0.93 and 0.95 and the values of Cronbach's alpha coefficient were 0.83; 0.94; 0.63; 0.77 and 0.93, for the dimensions transparency, specificity, communication, reasoning and for the total TEC-F respectively. The results of the 19-day test-retest were excellent. The mean TEC-F total quality pre-course was 31.4 and the mean post-course, 38.4 (p = 0.003 and p = 0.001 for group test and paired test respectively).

Conclusions: The pedagogical intervention produced a significant improvement in the quality of the expert’s formulations. The study added evidence supporting the TEC-F reliability.