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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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