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Criminal Victimization of Persons With Severe Mental Illness. V.A. Hiday, M.S. Swartz, J.W. Swanson, R. Borum, H.R. Wagner. Psychiatric Services 50: 62-68, 1999.


Importance: Individuals with severe psychiatric disorders who were not taking medication were found to be 2.7 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime (assault, rape, or mugging) than the general population.

Summary:

In North Carolina, 331 individuals with severe psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, affective disorders with psychotic features) were questioned about victimization in the 4-month period immediately preceding their psychiatric hospitalization. All 331 individuals had been referred for outpatient commitment, strongly suggesting that they were noncompliant with their medications.  Of the 331 individuals, 27 (8.2 percent) had been the victim of a violent crime (assault, rape, or mugging) within the previous 4 months, a rate 2.7 times higher than the annual rate of violent criminal victimization in the United States. The authors point to factors that "probably caused underreporting of some victimization" and also note that the rate of violent victimization in North Carolina is lower than the rate for the United States as a whole. These facts, plus the fact that the study compared victimization for 4 months in the study population versus 1 year in the control population, all suggest that the difference between the patients and controls was substantially greater. Using a multivariate analysis, the two variables that most strongly predicted criminal victimization among these individuals with severe psychiatric disorders were occasional drug or alcohol use and homelessness during the 4-month period.

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