TY - JOUR
T1 - The Average Predictive Validity of Intimate Partner Violence Risk Assessment Instruments
AU - Messing, Jill
AU - Thaller, Jonel
N1 - Funding Information:
Jill Theresa Messing , MSW, PhD is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. She earned her MSW and PhD in social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in interdisciplinary violence research at Johns Hopkins University (T32-MH20014) where she studied with Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN. She specializes in intervention research and is the principal investigator on the National Institute of Justice funded Oklahoma Lethality Assessment Study (#2008-WG-BX-0002), the coprincipal investigator on the National Science Foundation funded Legal Mobilization and Intimate Partner Victimization study (#1154098) and a coinvestigator on the National Institute of Mental Health funded study The use of Computerized Safety Decision Aids With Victims of Intimate Partner Violence (#1R01 MH085641-01A1). Her interest areas are intimate partner violence, domestic homicide/femicide, risk assessment, criminal justice-social service collaborations, and evidence-based practice.
PY - 2013/5
Y1 - 2013/5
N2 - The field of intimate partner violence (IPV) risk assessment (predicting recidivism, lethality) is fast growing, and the majority of research examining the predictive validity of IPV risk assessment instruments has been conducted in the past decade. This study examines the average predictive validity weighted by sample size of five stand alone IPV risk assessment instruments that have been validated in multiple research studies using the Receiver Operating Characteristic Area Under the Curve (AUC). The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) has the highest average weighted AUC (=.666, k=5) followed, in order of most to least predictive, by the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA; AUC=.628, k=6), the Danger Assessment (DA; AUC=.618, k=4), the Domestic Violence Screening Inventory (DVSI; AUC=.582, k=3), and the Kingston Screening Instrument for Domestic Violence (K-SID; AUC=.537, k=2). The effect size for the average AUCs for IPV risk assessment instruments is small, with the exception of a medium effect size for the ODARA. Of the 20 measures of predictive validity included in this analysis, the risk assessment was administered correctly in nine (45%). IPV risk assessment is relatively new, and the use of proxy instruments and utilization of risk assessment instruments in settings for which they were not created is widespread. While waiting for a more rigorous body of research, factors in addition to predictive validity must be taken into consideration (e.g., setting, outcome, skills of the assessor, access to information) when choosing which risk assessment instrument is appropriate for use in a particular practice setting.
AB - The field of intimate partner violence (IPV) risk assessment (predicting recidivism, lethality) is fast growing, and the majority of research examining the predictive validity of IPV risk assessment instruments has been conducted in the past decade. This study examines the average predictive validity weighted by sample size of five stand alone IPV risk assessment instruments that have been validated in multiple research studies using the Receiver Operating Characteristic Area Under the Curve (AUC). The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) has the highest average weighted AUC (=.666, k=5) followed, in order of most to least predictive, by the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA; AUC=.628, k=6), the Danger Assessment (DA; AUC=.618, k=4), the Domestic Violence Screening Inventory (DVSI; AUC=.582, k=3), and the Kingston Screening Instrument for Domestic Violence (K-SID; AUC=.537, k=2). The effect size for the average AUCs for IPV risk assessment instruments is small, with the exception of a medium effect size for the ODARA. Of the 20 measures of predictive validity included in this analysis, the risk assessment was administered correctly in nine (45%). IPV risk assessment is relatively new, and the use of proxy instruments and utilization of risk assessment instruments in settings for which they were not created is widespread. While waiting for a more rigorous body of research, factors in addition to predictive validity must be taken into consideration (e.g., setting, outcome, skills of the assessor, access to information) when choosing which risk assessment instrument is appropriate for use in a particular practice setting.
KW - domestic violence
KW - homicide
KW - intimate partner violence
KW - predictive validity
KW - receiver operating characteristic
KW - risk assessment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876144026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84876144026&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0886260512468250
DO - 10.1177/0886260512468250
M3 - Article
C2 - 23262817
AN - SCOPUS:84876144026
SN - 0886-2605
VL - 28
SP - 1537
EP - 1558
JO - Journal of interpersonal violence
JF - Journal of interpersonal violence
IS - 7
ER -