Characteristics and motivations of absconders from forensic mental health services: a case-control study

BMC Psychiatry

Table 3 Demographic, clinical and legal characteristics of absconders and controls

	Absconders (N = 57)		Controls (N = 56)
	M	SD	M	SD
Age^*	40.07	10.92	40.18	11.09
Days under ORB	2123.88_a	1738.81	1317.70_b	990.43
PCL-R total score	17.89	6.50	16.53	7.38
HCR-20 total score	25.53_a	5.26	20.83_b	5.62
	N	%	N	%
Sex (male)^*	44	77.2	46	82.1
Ethnicity
Caucasian	30	52.6	20	35.7
Afro-Caribbean	17	29.8	21	37.5
Asian	7	12.3	9	16.1
History of absconding*	32	56.1	0	0.0
Prior absconding attempts (yes)^†	17	29.8	5	8.9
Diagnosis^†
Primary psychotic disorder	17	34.0	25	51.0
Comorbid psychosis + substance abuse	33	66.0	24	49.0
Personality disorder indicated (yes)	24	42.1	19	33.9
Index offense
Violent	40	70.2	34	60.7
Non-violent	10	17.5	12	21.4
Sexual	7	12.3	10	17.9

Note. ORB = Ontario Review Board; PCL-R = Psychopathy Checklist, Revised; HCR-20 = Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20.
*Denotes a variable that was matched across absconding and control groups (age, sex), or held to = 0 in the control group (history of absconding).
Means in the same row that do not share subscripts (a, b) differ at p < .01. ^†For history of absconding attempts, χ² = 9.89, p = .002; for diagnosis, χ² = 2.94, p = .087.

ISSN: 1471-244X