Prediction of violent and destructive behavior in a forensic psychiatric hospital using the hand test

The Hand Test Acting Out Ratio (AOR) of 32 hospitalized patients in treatment at a forensic psychiatric hospital was compared with their incidents of violent and/or destructive behavior for the subsequent 3-month period after test administration. It was hypothesized than an Acting Out Score (AOS) cutoff of +1 or greater would differentiate those patients who had one or more incidents of violent and/or destructive behavior from those patients without any violent and/or destructive incidents. Kendall tau analyses did not indicate any significant difference in violent and/or destructive incidents for subjects with an AOS of +1 or greater and subjects with an AOS less than +1. Descriptive factors of age, intelligence, education, primary diagnosis, race and legal status did not influence the AOS.