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Table 6 Demographic, clinical and legal characteristics of absconders and controls

From: The impact of structured decision making on absconding by forensic psychiatric patients: results from an A-B design study

 

Absconders ( N  = 91)

Controls ( N  = 88)

 
 

M

SD

M

SD

F / KW H

Age†

40.76

12.20

39.86

11.02

0.27

Days under ORB

2199.33

1977.01

1325.16

1022.31

12.37**

PCL-R total score

18.40

6.20

16.13

6.79

3.80*

HCR-20 total score

26.00

5.09

21.90

6.07

22.10**

 

N

%

N

%

χ 2

Sex (male)†

69

83.0

73

75.8

1.39

Ethnicity

     

  Caucasian

44

53.7

25

32.9

7.87*

  Afro-Caribbean

29

35.4

34

44.7

  Asian

9

11.0

17

22.4

History of absconding (yes)†

51

57.3

0

0.0

69.55**

Prior absconding attempts (yes)

25

30.1

5

5.8

17.09**

Diagnosis

     

  Primary psychotic disorder

22

24.2

35

39.8

5.05*

  Comorbid psychosis + substance abuse

55

60.4

43

48.9

Personality disorder indicated (yes)

38

41.8

25

28.4

3.50*

Index offense

     

  Violent

65

71.4

58

65.9

0.77

  Non-violent

16

17.6

17

19.3

  Sexual

10

11.0

13

14.8

  1. Note. ORB = Ontario Review Board; PCL-R = Psychopathy Checklist, Revised; HCR-20 = Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20. The absconding group contains all non-overlapping clients who absconded between January 1, 2010 and February 28, 2014.
  2. †Denotes a variable that was matched across absconding and control groups (age, sex), or held to = 0 in the control group (history of absconding).
  3. *p < .05.**p ≤ .01.