Clinician ratings of the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) in a representative sample of Spanish prison inmates: New validity evidence.

Abstract

The Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) is a concept map of psychopathic personality disorder (PPD). The CAPP- Institutional Rating Scale (IRS) is a tool designed to assess CAPP symptoms in institutional settings. The CAPP contains 33 personality traits organized in six domains: attachment, behavioural, cognitive, dominance, emotional and self. Until now, much of the CAPP research has been conducted out of clinical, forensic and correctional settings using self-ratings. In the current study, the psychometric properties and construct validity of the CAPP-IRS were evaluated in a non-convenience sample of 204 Spanish convicts. Clinician ratings were employed. Participants had been imprisoned for at least 6 months at Pereiro de Aguiar Penitentiary. This group of inmates was heterogeneous with respect to type of official charges, and representative as all convicts interned for at least 6 months in this prison were screened for participation. Classical test theory indexes of reliability, correlations between CAPP items and domains and external correlations and structural analyses demonstrated that CAPP assessment is a solid and robust way of evaluating psychopathy in a correctional setting. Best fit was found for a three-factor model: attachment and emotional items associated with a callous and unemotional trait, dominance and self items associated with a pathological interpersonal style, and behavioural and residual items from other domains associated with impulsivity.