Evidence-Based Practices in Forensic Mental Health Programs and Services: An Annotated Bibliography
Section II - Definitions of FMHPS in Ontario
Section III - Areas Highlighted
Background
Purpose
Method
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Organization
The field of forensic mental health is closely connected with both the fields of general mental health and corrections. Each
of these fields by themselves involve a vast scientific and professional literature. In order to produce a manageable and
useful bibliography, several limitations were set on the scope and type of literature that would be included. The authors
acknowledge that a great amount of literature relevant to the field of forensic mental health was excluded from this document.
The strict limitations placed on the formation of this document can be found under the Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria section.
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The purpose creating this annotated bibliography was to produce a document that would summarize the literature and provide
a description of how each article fits within the evidence-base relevant to clinical practices in forensic mental health.
As you will see, we have tried to simplify the organization of the bibliography through the use of 'Content Matrices'. The matrices were developed to give the reader a quick visual representation of the major themes represented in the current
literature and the nature of the literature found in those areas.
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Search of the Published Literature
The research team employed a systematic approach to identifying and appraising the international literature and research.
A computer-assisted search of the various databases used in the formal academic literature in the mental health and criminal
justice fields was conducted to identify evidence-based knowledge and policy reports related to FMHPS from 1991 to the present.
The forensic mental health literature tends to be spread over a number of different disciplines and databases. The literature
search was performed using the following databases: Medline, PsycInfo, and CINHAL. The search words were mainly comprised
of words or combinations of words related to the major themes in the literature and the composition of the final report. These
included such terms as: forensic, risk assessment, risk management, rehabilitation, actuarial, static, dynamic, and treatment.
The searches were also filtered for articles written only in the English language, and those that were published between
January 1991 and June 2007.
This search was supplemented by a manual search of Reference Lists in the identified articles/reports.
The annotated bibliography contains only articles or chapters published in the scientific and professional literature.
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Articles in the annotated bibliography included only those that:
- Were published in the English language.
- Were published between January 1991 and June 2007.
- Were published in books or journals.
- Dealt with forensic populations. This removed a large portion of the literature that dealt only with individuals in the correctional population or in the
general mental health system. However, we do acknowledge that these populations may be similar in many ways. Articles not
dealing specifically with a forensic population were not included in the annotated bibliography.
- Were not focused on special populations in the forensic mental health system. For the purposes of this annotated bibliography,
‘special populations’ was used to refer to articles with a focus on specific groups of forensic patients. This includes articles
that were narrowly focused on such groups as sex offenders, juvenile offenders, certain demographic groups, etc.
We understand that many articles, dissertations, books, and unpublished reports exist that are highly relevant to the field
of forensic mental health and were not included in this report. The vast amount of information was necessarily subjected
to the limitations described in order to create a document that would be manageable in size and useful for the forensic mental
health practitioner. Forensic mental health is in many ways a transdisciplinary field, and should rely on the evidence contained
in several other fields including general mental health and corrections; however, the purpose of this document was to highlight
the literature that exists specific to forensic mental health programs and services. By showing where such research exists,
perhaps we can also highlight or suggest where future research with forensic mental health populations is needed. While we
do acknowledge that there are common clients between the corrections, general and forensic mental health systems, there is
value in research devoted specifically to individuals in each field.
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Preparation of the Annotated Bibliography
Articles found to be relevant to the project were annotated and the article annotations were formatted in the bibliography.
To our knowledge, there is no similar bibliography currently available.
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Three main themes emerged from the forensic mental health literature:
- Risk Assessment;
- Risk Management;
- Treatment.
These themes were used to structure the annotated bibliography. The articles included in the annotated bibliography were
further subdivided into two additional categories: Empirical and Non-Empirical. For the context of this annotated bibliography,
‘empirical’ included all articles with a predominately quantitative focus, and ‘non-empirical’ included all articles with
a qualitative focus (literature reviews, theoretical pieces, interviews, comments, etc.).
A Matrix indicating how many articles fit into each category and sub-category precedes each section of the annotated bibliography.
There are some key points to remember when reading the Matrices:
- Each cell of the Matrix is labeled with a capitalized and bracketed letter [e.g. (A)] that corresponds to a section of the
annotated bibliography. To find the references and annotations for any given cell, simply click on the corresponding bookmark.
If the bookmarks are not automatically visible, click on the bookmark icon or tab (depending on your Acrobat Reader version)
on the left-hand side of the screen.
- Due to the fact that many articles deal with more than one of the identified major themes in the literature, several articles
appear in more than one Matrix. For example, the following article appears in both the Risk Management and Treatment Matrix:
- Luettgen, J., Chrapko, W.E., & Reddon, J.R. (1998). Preventing violent re-offending in not criminally responsible patients. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 21, 89-98. doi:10.1016/S0160-2527(97)00051-4
- Several articles appear more than once in the same Matrix, under different headings. For example, the following article appears
in the Risk Assessment Matrix under the Mixed heading because it examines the HCR-20, a risk assessment instrument containing
both static and dynamic items, and under the Static heading because it also examines the VRAG, a risk assessment instrument
containing only static items:
- Grann, M., Belfrage, H., & Tengström, A. (2000). Actuarial assessment of risk for violence: Predictive validity of the VRAG
and the historical part of the HCR-20. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 27, 97-114. doi:10.1177/0093854800027001006
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Definitions of each Heading and Subheading
Risk Assessment: contains articles pertaining to theories, concepts or tools relating to the assessment of risk for violent recidivism in
forensic populations.
Risk Management: contains articles pertaining to strategies, tools, or concepts that relate to managing risk for violent reoffence in forensic
populations.
Treatment: contains articles pertaining to programs, strategies, or theories relating to treatment of mental health or criminogenic
needs specific to forensic populations.
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Section II - Definitions of FMHPS in Ontario
Section III - Areas Highlighted
Centre for Addiction
