Relationship of criminality to endogeneity and anxiety in patients with unipolar depression

Prevalence of criminal behaviors in an internal-medicine-resident clinic population

OBJECTIVE

Few, if any, US studies have examined rates of criminal behaviors among patients in clinical samples. According to findings from non-US studies, mostly in psychiatric samples, rates of criminal behavior are higher than in the general population. In this study, we examined the prevalence of criminal behaviors in an internal medicine outpatient sample from a resident-provider clinic.

METHOD

In a consecutive sample of internal medicine outpatients, 380 participants were surveyed in October of 2010 regarding 27 criminal offenses as delineated by the crime categorization schema used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

RESULTS

In this sample, 22.1% reported at least one criminal charge. The most commonly self- reported criminal charge was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (10.3%), followed by disorderly conduct (7.1%), drug abuse violations (5.8%), simple assault (5.3%), drunkenness (4.5%), and aggravated assault (3.2%).

CONCLUSIONS

Like previous non-US studies among psychiatric samples, there appears to be a higher prevalence of criminal behavior among outpatients in an internal medicine training clinic than in the general population. These behaviors may be inter-related through alcohol/substance-use disorders.

Persecutory ideation and depression in mild violence among incarcerated adult males

The present study examined the relationship between psychopathology and outcome measures of degree of victim violence and history of violence. The best predictor of degree of victim violence was an interaction between hopelessness and perception of external control, suggesting the importance of comorbidity in predicting violence severity. Contrary to many studies, an inverse relationship was found, indicating that those with greater psychopathology inflict less violence on their victims.