Forensic neuropsychological assessment: A review of its scope

Abstract

Background: Issues related to the field of mental health and justice require a multifactorial understanding of the possible causes of such issues. Objective: To conduct an integrative literature review of controlled studies describing forensic neuropsychological assessment. Methods: The articles were compiled and analyzed in two phases: 1) first, we retrieved all papers in PubMed by the keywords “Forensic Neuropsychology” and generated a growth curve for the subject and a cluster-based thematic distribution of publications. 2) We then conducted a curated analysis of all relevant papers indexed in Medline, PubMed and ISI, between 2000 and 2012. Results: The evolution of the field during the last 15 years reveals an unstable growth pattern and three main thematic clusters. In terms of our curated analysis, a total of 390 articles were pre-selected, resulting in the selection of 44 fully-relevant studies, which comprise four main categories: cognitive damage in forensic psychiatric patients; imitation of cognitive damage; civil capacity, penal liability and violence risk; and validation of neuropsychological assessment tools. Discussion: Two aspects appeared as the most relevant in this study: growth in the use of neuropsychological assessment as a diagnostic tool in the forensic context; and the necessity to enhance conformity in assessments.