McNiel D E, Binder R L
Am J Psychiatry. 1987 Feb;144(2):197-200. doi: 10.1176/ajp.144.2.197.
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.
