Alcohol abuse as the strongest risk factor for violent offending in patients with paranoid schizophrenia

Aggressive behaviour in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia patients, their unaffected siblings and healthy controls

AIM

While patients with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of aggressive behaviour, prior research has shown increased rates of aggressive behaviours in these patients that appear very early in the course of illness. We aimed to assess aggression in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia patients, their healthy siblings, and controls; and to investigate correlates of aggression in the patients group.

METHODS

Patients (N = 55), siblings (N = 55) and healthy controls (N = 71) were evaluated on Buss and Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AQ), Life History of Aggression (LHA), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, and Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale. Age, gender and substance use were regarded as covariates, and differences between the three groups were evaluated using analysis of covariance. Hierarchical regression was performed to determine which variables were associated with aggression level in the patients group.

RESULTS

The Tukey multiple comparison test showed that both patients (p < .001) and siblings (p = .023) scored higher on the LHA Aggression than controls. Siblings scored higher than controls (p = .010) for the Anger subscale of the AQ. Patients scored significantly higher than controls in the three impulsiveness dimensions; whereas siblings scored higher than controls in the motor (p = .023) and non-planning (p = .004) dimensions. Multivariate analyses showed that, after controlling for confounders, only attentional impulsiveness (β = .446, p = .0244) and psychopathy traits (β = .359, p = .010) helped predict AQ total scores among patients.

CONCLUSION

Aggression and some of its risk factors including impulsiveness are likely to be trait variables that might provide important vulnerability markers for people at heightened risk of developing psychosis.

Personality traits in psychotic illness and their clinical correlates: A systematic review

This systematic review focuses on personality traits according to both the Five Factor Model and Cloninger Psychobiological Model in relation to treatment related outcome variables across all stages of clinical psychotic illness. Search of Pubmed and Psychinfo databases led to final inclusion of 65 studies, which were ranked on quality and analyzed according to the associations between personality and outcome. Main findings are that higher levels of Harm Avoidance and Neuroticism are associated with higher symptom levels, tendency towards passive coping, greater self-stigma, lower quality of life, and Harm Avoidance to higher suicidality. Higher levels of Extraversion and higher levels of Self-Directedness are associated with more preference for active coping, more intrinsic motivation and higher self-esteem. Higher Novelty Seeking is related to more substance use and aggression, in men specifically. On outcome of trauma, care consumption and duration of untreated illness no consistent associations with personality traits were found. Combined evidence from both personality models however reveals a consistent pattern of personality traits related to clinical outcome in psychotic disorder, which is discussed in a dimensional manner.

Child abuse and aggressiveness in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia in Lebanon

OBJECTIVES

To identify individual and clinical risk factors of aggressiveness, including exposure to different forms of childhood trauma, in a sample of Lebanese patients with schizophrenia.

METHODS

A total of 131 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia participated in this cross-sectional study.

RESULTS

Higher physical (Beta = 0.24, p < 0.001) and sexual (Beta = 0.29, p = 0.003) abuse, alcohol drinking (Beta = 1.46, p = 0.008), having a history of head trauma (Beta = 1.10, p = 0.041), and male gender (Beta = -1.59, p = 0.009) were significantly associated with higher mean aggression scores.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Our investigation of the factors linked to aggressiveness in patients with schizophrenia complement those of earlier findings, showing that the relationship between interacting individual and environmental risk factors and later aggressiveness is quite complex, and needs further longitudinal and prospective studies.

Understanding the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Lockdowns and Social Isolation on Sleep Quality

The uncertain, ever-changing and an ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic means that it may take some time before we can fully appreciate the negative effect of the pandemic and lockdown on our sleep and mental health. It is increasingly recognised that in the aftermath of pandemic, several persistent sleep, neuropsychiatric and physical sequelae may continue long after the pandemic is over. A body of evidence to date also highlights a significant disparity in sleep and mental health difficulties in specific vulnerable groups in the community, with different temporal profiles and sleep issues that are reported. In this perspective, we argue for a possible mechanistic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its imposed restrictions and social isolation on sleep quality. We similarly discuss some of the potential international differences, as well as similarities, behind reported idiosyncratic biological vulnerabilities that may have contributed to the genesis of sleep issues. Lastly, we propose some possible implementations and innovations that may be needed in restructuring of sleep disorders services in order to benefit recovering COVID-19 patients.

Violent Behavior During Psychiatric Inpatient Treatment in a German Prison Hospital

Violent behavior in correctional facilities is common and differs substantially in type, target, implication, and trigger. Research on frequency and characteristics of violent behavior in correctional facilities and psychiatric hospitals is limited. Results from recent research suggest that comorbidity of severe mental disorder, personality disorder, and diagnosis of substance abuse is related to a higher risk of violent behavior. In the Berlin prison hospital, a database was created to collect data from all violent incidences (n=210) between 1997 and 2006 and between 2010 and 2016. In a retrospective, case-control study, we analyzed specific socioeconomic data and psychiatric diagnosis and compared the group of prisoners with violent behavior with randomly selected prisoners of the same department without violent behavior (n = 210). Diagnosis of schizophrenia, non-German nationality, no use of an interpreter, no children, and no previous sentence remained significantly associated with the dependent variable violent behavior. There were no significant differences regarding age and legal statuses. Practical implications for clinical work are discussed.

Mentalization and empathy as predictors of violence in schizophrenic patients: Comparison with nonviolent schizophrenic patients, violent controls and nonviolent controls

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.

Estimates of Ethanol Exposure in Children from Food not Labeled as Alcohol-Containing

Ethanol is widely used in herbal medicines, e.g., for children. Furthermore, alcohol is a constituent of fermented food such as bread or yogurt and “non-fermented” food such as fruit juices. At the same time, exposure to very low levels of ethanol in children is discussed as possibly having adverse effects on psychomotoric functions. Here, we have analyzed alcohol levels in different food products from the German market. It was found that orange, apple and grape juice contain substantial amounts of ethanol (up to 0.77 g/L). Furthermore, certain packed bakery products such as burger rolls or sweet milk rolls contained more than 1.2 g ethanol/100 g. We designed a scenario for average ethanol exposure by a 6-year-old child. Consumption data for the “categories” bananas, bread and bakery products and apple juice were derived from US and German surveys. An average daily exposure of 10.3 mg ethanol/kg body weight (b.w.) was estimated. If a high (acute) consumption level was assumed for one of the “categories,” exposure rose to 12.5–23.3 mg/kg b.w. This amount is almost 2-fold (average) or up to 4-fold (high) higher than the lowest exposure from herbal medicines (6 mg/kg b.w.) suggested to require warning hints for the use in children.

[Insight and psychiatric dangerousness: A review of the literature]

INTRODUCTION

Violence committed by individuals with severe mental illness has become an increasing focus of concern among clinicians, policy makers, and the general public, often as the result of tragic events. Research has shown in the past two decades an increased risk of violence among patients with mental disorder. Nevertheless, of those suffering from mental illness, perpetrators of other directed violence form a minority subgroup. The means by which there is this association between mental illness and violence has remained controversial. Factors such as positive psychotic symptoms, medication non-adherence, alcohol or psychoactive substance abuse and antisocial personality were found to be predictive of violence. Overall, literature provides support to the assertion that violent behavior of mentally ill patients is a heterogeneous phenomenon that is driven by multiple inter-related and independent factors. Furthermore, psychiatrists are often asked to predict an individual's future dangerousness, in a medical or a legal context. In the process of risk assessment of dangerousness, more focus has been placed on dynamic risk factor. In this context, lack of insight has established itself both as a part of violence risk models and as a clinical item in structured approaches to measure dangerousness. However, few studies have tested these associations. The main purpose of this paper is to review the literature concerning the relationship between insight and dangerousness and discuss the contributions of the insight in the assessment of dangerousness in patients with mental illness. We included twenty studies that evaluated the association between insight and variable such as physical or verbal violence, aggressiveness, hostility or sexual aggression.

RESULTS

According to the findings of this review, the strength and specific nature of this relationship remain unclear due to considerable methodological and conceptual shortcomings, including heterogeneity in the definition and assessment of violence, a minority of prospective studies and the lack of systematic consideration of possible confounding variables. However, the ability of the patient to perceive their illness is an important element to be considered in assessing the dangerousness both medically and legally. Higher belief flexibility and lower confidentiality of individual judgment, which reflect greater cognitive insight, may be associated with a lower incidence of violence, in particular in schizophrenia by decreasing the degree of confidence related to psychotic symptoms.

CONCLUSION

In the growing efforts to reduce stigma associated with mental illness, it is important to identify a subgroup of patients at risk of violence and provide them with targeted treatment. In this sense, it seems important in the future to continue in this field of research to determine if the lack of insight is a covariate of a worsened condition or a specific violence risk factor per se.