Compulsory psychiatric treatment checklist: Instrument development and clinical application

Abstract

Instruments designed to evaluate the necessity of compulsory psychiatric treatment (CPT) are scarce to non-existent. We developed a 25-item Checklist (scoring 0 to 50) with four clusters (Legal, Danger, Historic and Cognitive), based on variables identified as relevant to compulsory treatment. The Compulsory Treatment Checklist (CTC) was filled with information on case (n=324) and control (n=251) subjects, evaluated under the Portuguese Mental Health Act (Law 36/98), in three hospitals. For internal validation, we used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), testing unidimensional and bifactor models. Multilevel logistic regression model (MLL) was used to predict the odds ratio (OR) for compulsory treatment based on the total scale score. Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis (ROC) was performed to predict compulsory treatment. CFA revealed the best fit indexes for the bifactor model, with all items loading on one General factor and the residual loading in the a priori predicted four specific factors. Reliability indexes were high for the General factor (88.4%), and low for specific factors (<5%), which demonstrate that CTC should not be performed in the subscales to access compulsory treatment. MLL reveals that for each item scored in the scale, it increases the OR by 1.26 for compulsory treatment (95%CI 1.21–1.31, p<0.001). Based on the total score, accuracy was 90%, and the best cut-off point of 23.5 detects compulsory treatment with a sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 93.6%. The CTC presents robust internal structure with a strong unidimensional characteristic, and a cut-off point for compulsory treatment of 23.5. The improved 20-item version of the CTC could represent an important instrument to improve clinical decision regarding CPT, and ultimately to improve mental health care of patients with severe psychiatric disorders.