Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on January 27, 2008
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2008 8(1):1-4; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhm030
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Evidence-Based Practices Applied to Forensic Psychiatry: Introduction to Special Issue
From the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and McMaster University
Contact author: Dr. Graham D. Glancy, 302 The East Mall, Suite 400, Etobicoke, Ontario, M9B 6C7, Canada. E-mail: graham.glancy{at}utoronto.ca.
Evidence-based practice (EBP) has become widely established in many branches of medicine, including psychiatry. In this article, I argue that it is incumbent upon a forensic psychiatrist to examine this concept following a trend in legal decisions that increasingly demand that we based our opinion on a scientific foundation. I will briefly discuss the shortcomings of EBP and how they have been addressed in more recent commentary. I will introduce a number of articles that suggest that we are at a stage where the principles of EBP can be applied to many aspects of forensic psychiatry.
KEY WORDS: evidence-based practice, forensic psychiatry, law, legal decisions