Is the Revised Psychopathy Checklist Clinically Useful for Adolescents?

Abstract

Recent studies have provided evidence for the reliability and validity of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R) for forensic samples. The present study investigated PCL-R psychometric properties among Caucasian and African-American adolescent males from forensic and school settings. The clinical utility of the PCL-R was investigated in terms of predicting future delinquency above and beyond data that are more readily available. Good reliability and validity for the PCL-R were found. PCL-R Total and Factors scores were greatest for participants with conduct disorder, followed by those with oppositional defiant disorder, with the smallest scores observed for participants with neither disorder. In a 1-year follow-up, PCL-R scores accounted for a unique proportion of the variance in juvenile criminal justice sentencing above and beyond the baseline number of delinquent acts recorded in juvenile criminal justice records and above a baseline disruptive behavior diagnosis continuum score. Compared to conduct disorder diagnosis, the PCL-R psychopath threshold score provided much better sensitivity with only slightly worse specificity for predicting delinquency during the 1-year follow-up.