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Validation of the Security Needs Assessment Profile (SNAP) by a national survey of secure units in England
- Authors:
- DAVIES Steffan, COLLINS Mick, ASHWELL Chris
- Journal article citation:
- Psychiatrist (The), 36(10), October 2012, pp.366-371.
- Publisher:
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
Assessing a patient’s need for secure psychiatric services is a key competence in forensic psychiatric training. For individual patients, proper understanding of their full range of security needs will allow a correct initial placement and appropriate progress through the various levels of security. The Security Needs Assessment Profile (SNAP) was developed in the Trent region of England to provide a detailed description of individual patient’s security requirements. This paper describes a national survey of secure units undertaken to examine the content validity of the item structure of SNAP and revise the item definitions to reflect more broadly based clinical practice. In addition, a follow-up survey sought views on the usefulness of SNAP in clinical practice. The survey participants were 35 secure units from National Health Service and independent sector providers. No new security items were generated. All the item definitions were reviewed, many amended, and a small number revised extensively. Units’ security profiles were rated on the original and revised instruments. The revised SNAP was shown to be generalisable across secure services in England; 92% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that SNAP would be useful in providing a structured security needs assessment.