General instruments for risk assessment

Purpose of review The identification of those who may be at increased risk of exhibiting violence is one of the highest-profile tasks of mental health professionals. Risk assessment is a rapidly developing field, and a number of instruments have been proposed for facilitating this task. Recent findings This article summarizes the main developments in the field of risk assessment and examines the key themes that have emerged over the past year. It discusses recent findings concerning comparisons between risk-assessment instruments and ways of optimizing the predictive accuracy of risk-assessment tools. A trend over the past year has been that risk assessment has begun to be seen as a multi-disciplinary task rather than falling within the remit of a single professional group. Several papers in the past year have explored issues concerned with the practical application of risk-assessment instruments. Summary Risk-assessment instruments can play a valuable role in identifying those who may be at increased risk of exhibiting violent behaviour. However, they should be interpreted with caution rather than being regarded as fixed entities. Practitioners should be aware that all risk-assessment instruments are 'works in progress' and are likely to require ongoing revision.