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Background Although positive psychology interventions (PPIs) show beneficial effects on mental health in non-clinical populations, the current literature is inconclusive regarding its effectiveness in clinical settings. We aimed to examine the effects of PPIs on well-being (primary outcome), depression, anxiety, and stress (secondary outcomes) in clinical samples with psychiatric or somatic disorders. Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus were searched for controlled studies of PPIs in clinical samples between Jan 1, 1998 and May 31, 2017. Methodological quality of each study was rated. We used Hedges’ adjusted g to calculate effect sizes and pooled results using random-effect models. Results Thirty studies were included, representing 1864 patients with clinical disorders. At post-intervention, PPIs showed significant, small effect sizes for well-being (Hedges’ g  = 0.24) and depression ( g  = 0.23) compared to control conditions when omitting outliers. Significant moderate improvements were observed for anxiety ( g  = 0.36). Effect sizes for stress were not significant. Follow-up effects (8–12 weeks), when available, yielded similar effect sizes. Quality of the studies was low to moderate. Conclusion These findings indicate that PPIs, wherein the focus is on eliciting positive feelings, cognitions or behaviors, not only have the potential to improve well-being, but can also reduce distress in populations with clinical disorders. Given the growing interest for PPIs in clinical settings, more high quality research is warranted as to determine the effectiveness of PPIs in clinical samples. Trial registration PROSPERO CRD42016037451

Purpose Patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are overrepresented in forensic samples. However, research on risk assessment in forensic patients with ASD is scarce. The purpose of this paper was to examine the prevalence of short-term inpatient aggression and explore the risk and protective factors for aggression in forensic psychiatric patients with ASD (N = 32). Design/methodology/approach The association between two commonly used violence risk assessment instruments (HKT-R and SAPROF) and physical aggression during ten weeks of inpatient stay was examined in a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital. Findings Results showed no significant association between HKT-R and SAPROF and incidents of physical aggression. This suggests that the commonly used assessment instruments may be of limited use for assessing the risk of short-term inpatient aggression in patients with ASD. Research limitations/implications Limitations to the current study include the relatively small sample size and the lack of information on index offenses. Further research with a larger, more homogeneous sample and longer follow-up is indicated to confirm the results of this study. Future research should also include the possible association between aggressive behavior of people with ASD and other factors that might be relevant, such as social cognition deficits, cognitive and sensory impairments, deficient empathy and emotion regulation problems. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to directly examine the prevalence of inpatient aggression of forensic psychiatric patients with ASD and its association with risk and protective factors.

Offences committed by pedophiles are crimes that evoke serious public concern and outrage. Although recent research using implicit measures has shown promise in detecting deviant sexual associations, the discriminatory and predictive quality of implicit tasks has not yet surpassed traditional assessment methods such as questionnaires and phallometry. The current research extended previous findings by examining whether a combination of two implicit tasks, the Implicit Association Task (IAT) and the Picture Association Task (PAT), was capable of differentiating pedophiles from non-pedophiles, and whether the PAT, which allows separate analysis for male, female, boy and girl stimulus categories, was more sensitive to specific sexual associations in pedophiles than the IAT. A total of 20 male self-reported pedophiles (10 offender and 10 non-offenders) and 20 male self-reported heterosexual controls completed the two implicit measures. Results indicated that the combination of both tasks produced the strongest results to date in detecting implicit pedophilic preferences (AUC = .97). Additionally, the PAT showed promise in decomposing the sexual associations in pedophiles. Interestingly, as there was an equal distribution of offenders and non-offenders in the pedophile group, it was possible to test for implicit association differences between these groups. This comparison showed no clear link between having these implicit sexual associations and actual offending.