Applied Research Innovation and Service Evaluation

EuroSTART: dynamic risk assessment for violence in mental health settings

EuroSTART is an international consortium of forensic mental health services in four European countries collaborating in the construction and analysis of an integrated dataset of risk assessments.

The project is co-ordinated by the Brøset Centre for Research and Education in Forensic Psychiatry, Trondheim, Norway. Standardised anonymized data from routine clinical assessments using the Structured Assessment of Risk & Treatability (START) instrument (Webster et al., 2004) by services in Merseyside (UK), Stockholm (Sweden), Vaasa (Finland) and Roskilde (Denmark) are being pooled to enable cross-national comparisons of best practice.

The main aims of the study are to examine: (1) the use of the START in clinical practice in different countries; (2) the optimal frequency of START assessments to maximize effectiveness; (3) the potential for linking a briefer version of the instrument and/or specific items to violence and other adverse outcomes. Phase 1 of the dataset construction has been completed and preliminary analyses are being conducted.

List of Publications:

  • Whittington R, Pollak C, Keski-Valkama A, Brown A, Bak J, Hvidhjelm J & Palmstierna T (2019) EuroSTART: Variations in strengths and risk factors assessments among forensic patients in four European countries. 11th. European Congress on Violence in Clinical Psychiatry, Lillestrøm-Oslo, Norway, October 2019.

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