Comparing static and dynamic predictors of risk for hostility in serious mental illness: Preliminary findings

Abstract

This study compared static predictors of hostility (e.g. demographics, clinician ratings) to subjective (i.e., self-reported affect on slider scales in response to written questions) and objective (i.e., vocal indicators of arousal from speech samples in a story-retelling task) dynamic predictors using ambulatory assessment over five days in a sample of 25 stable outpatients with diagnoses of a serious mental illness. Multilevel modeling showed that both subjective and objective dynamic predictors were significant, but none of the static predictors were. These results suggest that, in predicting hostility, it is more important to account for state variation than static traits.