The CANFOR Scale for the Assessment of Needs of Forensic Psychiatric Patients: Preliminary Report on the Polish Version of the Scale and Its Reliability.

BACKGROUND

The constantly growing number of patients in psychiatric wards (including forensic wards) is a serious social, medical, and economic problem. Therefore, it is necessary to study the needs of these patients. The aim of the study was to adapt and test the reliability of the Polish version of the scale for the assessment of needs of forensic psychiatric patients-Camberwell Assessment of Need-Forensic Version (CANFOR).

METHODS

The scale was translated into Polish and then back-translated. The study was conducted among 60 patients of basic and enhanced security level forensic psychiatry wards at the Provincial Specialist Mental Health Hospital in Poland.

RESULTS

When analyzing the reproducibility of the responses in terms of assessing the reliability of the CANFOR questionnaire, perfect agreement of 100% was obtained in 22 areas of need. Similarly, in the repeatability study of the CANFOR questionnaire after 2 weeks, perfect agreement-100%-was obtained in 24 areas of need. In the correlation analysis of the CANFOR with another measurement tool-LSP, significant values at the < .05 level were obtained when measuring several variables.

CONCLUSIONS

The study resulted in high reliability of the Polish version of the CANFOR scale. It is advisable to continue research in the area of psychometric properties of the scale, including the validity of the tool.