Measuring motivation to change in offenders

Abstract

Measuring motivation to change in offender populations is important both for selection into treatment programmes and for assessing progress in therapy. Two studies are reported in this paper, both looking at the psychometric properties of questionnaires designed to measure stage of change in therapy. The samples used were patients detained in special hospitals under the Mental Health Act (1983) classification of psychopathic disorder. The first study provides norms for this group on the stages of change in psychotherapy questionnaire, plus some additional information on its relationship with self-esteem and self-efficacy measures. The second study looked at a brief version of the stages of change questionnaire, concluding that its psychometric properties were such that further use was contra-indicated.