Single versus multiple firesetting: an examination of demographic, behavioural, and psychological factors

Deliberate firesetting is a prevalent and persistent issue. While a number of distinct psychological treatment needs have been identified for adults who set fires, their association with multiple firesetting has received limited attention. Previous studies have primarily focused on retrospective information coded from institutional records using proxy indicators of psychological factors. In contrast, this study examined whether demographics, offence histories, firesetting behaviours, and psychometric assessments of psychological vulnerabilities hypothesised to be associated with firesetting discriminate between adults who have set only one fire and those who have set multiple fires. Participants (n = 128) were recruited from prison establishments and categorised according to whether they self-reported having set only a single fire (n = 60) or multiple fires (n = 68) as an adult. Our findings provide evidence that identification with fire, antisocial attitudes, and anger-related cognition and arousal are associated with multiple firesetting, and therefore represent key treatment targets for interventions aiming to reduce the risk of persistent firesetting. Furthermore, a history of setting fires within prison was the largest unique predictor of multiple firesetting (OR = 6.83), highlighting the urgent need for more research on institutional firesetting.