Reliability of File-Based Retrospective Ratings of Psychopathy With the PCL-R

Abstract
A rapidly emerging consensus recognizes Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCGR; Hare, 1991) as the most valid and useful instrument to assess psychopathy (Fulero, 1995; Stone, 1995). We compared independent clinical PCL-R ratings of 40 forensic adult male criminal offenders to retrospective file-only ratings. File-based PCL-R ratings, in comparison to the clinical ratings, yielded categorical psychopathy diagnoses with a sensitivity of .57 and a specificity of .96. The intraclass correlation (ICC) of the total scores as estimated by ICC,2,, was .88, and was markedly better on Factor 2, ICC,21, = 39, than on Factor 1, ICC(2,1, = .69. The findings support the belief that for research purposes, file-only PCL-R ratings based on Swedish forensic psychiatric investigation records can be made with good alternate-form reliability.