Don’t Beat Around the Bush! The Relationship Between Forensic Vigilance and Communication Style

Abstract

The field of forensic mental healthcare is unique in several ways. Forensic vigilance is a specialty needed by forensic mental health professionals, consisting of professional forensic psychiatric knowledge, knowledge of individual patients, environmental observations, and clinical judgment. Though communication seems to play an important role in forensic vigilance, it is still unknown which communication styles are related to forensic vigilance, if any. In the current study, we examined if certain communication styles are related to forensic vigilance by means of an online survey among forensic mental health professionals. In total 138 Dutch forensic psychiatric professionals participated in the survey. The expressive and precise communication styles positively predict forensic vigilance, while the emotional and manipulative communication styles show a negative relationship with forensic vigilance. Findings of the present study further the understanding of the construct of forensic vigilance. The findings presented here may give rise to attention for specific manners of communication in supervision and training programs. The current study represents the first effort to study the relationship between communication styles and forensic vigilance.