Dynamic risk and violence in individuals with an intellectual disability: tool development and initial validation

Without a violence risk assessment designed for people with an intellectual disability (ID), assessors are reliant upon tools developed for mainstream offenders or develop their own tools. This study describes the early stages of development of the Current Risk of Violence (CuRV), an informant-reported measure of dynamic risk for aggression in adults with an ID. The pool of items was generated from a multitude of sources. Predictive accuracy for aggression was tested prospectively among 64 adults with an ID and history of aggression. The 34-item CuRV was found to be a brief, uncomplicated risk assessment. Initial findings revealed good predictive validity over a five-month period: area under the curve (AUC) range from .72, 95% CI [.59, .85] to .77, 95% CI [.66, .89]. These preliminary findings suggest that the CuRV may assist staff to perform assessments of risk in busy clinical settings. Future research effort is needed to fully explore the psychometric properties of the CuRV.