RESUMEN
There are conflicting results concerning risk of violence in schizophrenia. Empathy and mentalization deficits are associated both with schizophrenia and violence, however, there are only a few studies with equivocal results concerning their relationship. 88 violent and nonviolent paranoid schizophrenic and violent and nonviolent control males in psychiatric, forensic psychiatric and correctional institutions completed the Ekman 60 Faces test, Faux Pas Recognition Test, Eysenck IVE test, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Spielberger Anger Expression Scale. Data were analysed with ANOVA and logistic regression models. Significant group differences with a characteristic pattern were detected in mentalization, facial affect recognition, fear and anger recognition, interpersonal distress, and frequency of direction of anger expression. Predictors of violent behaviour were different in the schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic groups. Lack of major differences in empathy and mentalization between violent and nonviolent schizophrenia patients suggests that such deficits are core features of schizophrenia but do not determine emerging violence in this illness. Our results emphasise the importance of distinguishing between violence related to core positive symptoms of schizophrenia and that emerging from independent comorbid antisocial personality traits in order to identify targets for screening, detection, prevention and management of violence risk in different subpopulations of schizophrenia patients.
Asunto(s)
Empatía/fisiología , Mentalización/fisiología , Psicología del Esquizofrénico , Violencia/psicología , Adulto , Agresión/psicología , Ira , Trastorno de Personalidad Antisocial/psicología , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMEN
INTRODUCTION: This study aims to reflect on the connection between maternal filicide and major psychiatric disorders based on international literature, and analysis of filicides perpetrated by women and ending with compulsory medical treatment based on a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict. METHOD: For the purpose of the analysis we collected cases back to 1993 from the archives of the Forensic Observation and Psychiatric Institution (IMEI), when a female perpetrator committed homicide against her blood-related offspring, after which she spent her compulsory medical treatment in the Institution. We had 14 cases which were only descriptively analysed due to the low number of cases. We collected data through overview of the documentation of the patients. We focused on several factors: demographic characteristics of the victims, characteristics of the homicidal act, demographic and psychiatric characteristics of the perpetrators. RESULTS: Most importantly, our results show interesting findings in the field of gender distribution of the victims. In relation to suicide risk, our results concur with previous findings pointing out its strong connection with filicide. Furthermore, our findings point out the relevance of schizoaffective disorder, as it was the most frequent diagnosis in our cases. CONCLUSION: We make our conclusions primarily in regard of prevention, we emphasise the strongest risk factors according to the results, which can draw the clinical practitioner's attention to the danger of filicide.