European Study on Risk Factors for Violence in Mental Disorder and Forensic Care: a multicentre project. The EU-Viormed Dataset

The aims of this project, through a series of interlinked work packages, designed by researchers and practicing clinicians, and lead by an experienced management team, is to explore and map these differences, test new risk assessment tools and identify and share best practice where it exists. It aims are fourfold. Firstly to describe forensic psychiatry services as they exist today in 2017 across the European Union. Secondly to identify risk factors for violence in a unique international forensic sample and thirdly to test for the very first time in a related EU sample two contrasting methods of violence risk assessment. Finally it explored what works for these often marginalised patients, their families and their carers, at an operational, clinical and ethical level.
These aims were achieved through two studies designs:
Study 1: case-control retrospective design in which forensic patients with Schizophrenia
Spectrum Disorders (SSDs) who have a history of interpersonal violence and live in forensic
units will be compared to non-violent patients with SSDs living in the community.
Study 2: prospective cohort study, with 6 and 12 month follow-up, to test the predictive validity
of the leading structured professional clinical judgement guide for violence prediction, the
HCR-20v3, the Forensic Psychiatry and Violence Tool (FoVOx) and the Mental Illness and
Suicide Tool (OXMIS, https://oxrisk.com/)