People With Mental Illnesses Up to Ten Times More Likely to Be Violently Assaulted

3
397

People who’ve been diagnosed with severe mental illnesses are from three to ten times more likely to become victims of violent and non-violent crimes than members of the general population, according to a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The research team interviewed 361 psychiatric patients using the national crime survey questionnaire, and compared the findings with 3,138 people from the general population who’d completed a similar survey.

In the previous year, 40% of the patients had been a victim of a crime, compared to 14% of the control group. About 19% of the patients had been violently assaulted, compared to just 3% of the general population, a six-fold difference. Women with mental illnesses, the researchers wrote, were particularly vulnerable, having “four-, ten- and four-fold increases in the odds of experiencing domestic, community and sexual violence, respectively.”

Khalifeh, H., S. Johnson, L. M. Howard, R. Borschmann, D. Osborn, K. Dean, C. Hart, J. Hogg, and P. Moran. “Violent and Non-Violent Crime against Adults with Severe Mental Illness.” The British Journal of Psychiatry, February 7, 2015, bjp.bp.114.147843. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.114.147843. (Abstract)

3 COMMENTS

  1. I was violently assaulted in a hospital that learned I’d been stigmatized by a psychiatrist and paranoid of a malpractice suit PCP previously. The doctors seemingly have a well oiled system set up to violently assault those who’ve dealt with prior easily recognized iatrogenesis, and then the controversial psychiatric iatrogenesis.

    One of the doctors, V R Kuchipudi, was finally arrested for having lots of patients medically unnecessarily shipped to him so he could “snow” them, then preform unneeded tracheotomies on them for profit:

    http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2013/pr0416_01a.pdf

    Report comment

  2. Tragedies like this appear to happen more frequently than some people believe they do. Without going into a long story, a relative of ours has been suffering due to some doctor, who treated her with various medications for her mental health challenges. Needless to say, years later, she is now with a better team of providers, who indicate that her previous providers mishandled her private mental health information inappropriately and divulged it to other patients, their family members and it has recently caused our relative to be harassed by relatives of another patient. Sad, but true.

    Having articles like this one out in the open, helps alleviate abuse by doctors, nurses, and other allied health professionals.

    Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY