Read time: 2 minutes, 23 seconds
There are many evidence-based risk assessment tools that help mental health professionals predict whether a person will sexually reoffend. However, these tools typically take a negative, biased, and demotivating approach. With therapy increasingly adopting a strengths-based approach, Dr. Gwenda M. Willis was searching for an assessment tool that aligned with her strengths-based approach to therapy.
Enter the Structured Assessment of PROtective Factors against Sexual Offending or SAPROF-SO.
During the International Forensic Psychiatry Lecture Series presentation on September 19, 2024, Dr. Willis shared two of her and her team’s research studies that found the SAPROF-SO was able to predict reduced repeated sexual offending. (You can watch a recording of the lecture online.)
What the SAPROF-SO Is
SAPROF-SO can guide healthcare professionals in predicting whether a person is more or less likely to sexually reoffend by using three core subscales. These include:
- Resilience, including adaptive schemas, empathy, coping, self-control, and attitudes toward rules and regulations;
- Adaptive Sexuality, including sexual self-regulation, prosocial (that is, positive behaviour to help others instead of themselves) sexual interests, prosocial sexual identity, and intimate relationships;
- Prosocial Connection and Reward, including goal-directed living, work, leisure activities, social network, and emotional connection to adults; and
It considers information from the previous six months (or more for selected items), and therefore captures changes in protection present over time.
What the SAPROF-SO Research Found
The First Study
Dr. Willis and her team used all available records for 170 adults on supervised release from a secure treatment centre in the United States. The team retrospectively completed SAPROF-SO assessments before each adult’s release. They then compared the results with whether these individuals had their supervised release revoked for sexual offences or any other reason.
The total SAPROF-SO score predicted both sexual reoffending and any revocation. In addition, the Adaptive Sexuality subscale predicted sexual reoffending, and the Resilience subscale predicted any revocation. The Prosocial Connection and Reward subscale did not significantly predict either.
That research is expected to be published in the coming months.
The Second Study
Her team is continuing to work in New Zealand with 157 adults who were previously imprisoned for one or more sexual offences. Each person was interviewed on the phone and asked to complete a confidential questionnaire with self-reported reoffending, cultural identity and connectedness, and general well-being. The team repeated this every six months in four waves, with the last wave completed this past July. They also collected official reoffence data from the New Zealand Police (with participants’ consent).
Early findings show higher SAPROF-SO scores predicted reduced sexual reoffending and improved well-being.
Dr. Willis said the tool’s validity comes from looking at people’s protective factors, not just the presence or absence of risk factors. Protective factors are attributes that have been shown to reduce the risk of offending, including sexual offending. They can be completely unrelated to a risk factor, counter the effects of a risk factor, or exist on a spectrum with risk factors.
Next Steps
Dr. Willis and her team are testing the predictive ability of the SAPROF-SO with Indigenous and equity-deserving populations and comparing the predictive power of this tool with other risk assessment tools. They will begin looking at how meaningful changes are before and after therapy and in a five-year follow-up with the New Zealand study participants.
Written by Virginia St-Denis and approved by Dr. Gwenda M. Willis.
