Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:197-200
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Predictive validity of judgments of dangerousness in emergency civil commitment
DE McNiel and RL Binder
The authors investigated the predictive validity of judgments of
dangerousness made in the context of emergency civil commitment. The
medical charts of 101 consecutive patients involuntarily admitted to a
university-based acute inpatient unit were reviewed for evidence of
violence within the first 72 hours of hospitalization. More than two-
thirds of the patients committed as a danger to others engaged in some type
of violence, compared with fewer than one-third of other involuntary
patients. The findings suggest that the emergency commitment situation
permits judgments of dangerousness with a relatively high degree of
short-term predictive validity.
