The Use of the Psychopathy Content Scale-16 (P-16) in an Adolescent Inpatient Setting

This study was an effort to explore and expand the research in the field regarding the credibility of self-report measures when measuring psychopathic-like traits in children and adolescents. Some clinical research efforts have been devoted to developing screening indicators to ascertain whether a more comprehensive assessment of psychopathy traits might be advisable. This study examined the relationships between the abbreviated Psychopathy Content Scale (P-16; Salekin, Ziegler, Larrea, Anthony, & Bennett, 2003) taken from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon, 1993) with performance and self-report based measures. Findings supported the convergent validity of the P-16 as a potential screener of psychopathic-like traits in youth. The strongest relationships were found when using the P-16 Total Scale score. Furthermore, using the P-16 cut off score of 10 or higher yielded the most predictable results. It was found that those adolescents that scored high in psychopathy were between 6 to 7 percent of the total inpatient adolescent sample. Conclusions showed that it is of upmost importance to obtain a clearer picture of those psychopathic traits that might develop early in childhood in order to delineate a more homogenous subgroup of children with conduct problems that may be at risk for psychopathy. The assessment of psychopathic-like features with vulnerable youth can then help facilitate prevention, early intervention, and treatment