Risk factors for violent crime and repeat offending in severe mental illness. (360G-Wellcome-095806_Z_11_Z)

Interpersonal violence is among the top twenty causes of mortality and disability-adjusted living years worldwide. Severe mental illness increases the risk of violence, reflected in part by the increasing costs of forensic psychiatric and prison mental health. This project aims to clarify associations and mediators for violent crime in individuals with severe mental illness. The proposal will draw on a unique resource: Swedish national registers from 1973-2009 with high quality information on me dical diagnoses, prescriptions, crime, family associations, and socio-economic factors. A broad and comprehensive research plan will be undertaken with particular emphasis placed on those factors that have not been researched to date, and where findings could alter clinical practice. One of these areas is violence risk assessment, and the project will examine whether the risk factors identified can improve predictive validity of violence risk assessment in all psychiatric patients, by diagnostic categories, and in high risk groups of forensic psychiatric patients and mentally disordered prisoners. In addition, some of these findings will be tested in a small pilot study in China, which, if successful, may expand in scope during the project.