Chicago: Most psychiatric disorders -- including depression -- do not predict future
violent behavior, according to new Northwestern Medicine longitudinal
study of delinquent youth. The only exception is substance abuse and
dependence. “Our findings are relevant to the recent tragic plane crash in the
French Alps. Our findings show that no one could have predicted that
the pilot -- who apparently suffered from depression - - would
perpetrate this violent act,” said corresponding author Linda Teplin,
the Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It is not merely a
suicide, but an act of mass homicide.”
The study did find, however, that some delinquent youth with current
psychiatric illness may be violent. For example, males with mania were
more than twice as likely to report current violence than those without.
But these relationships are not necessarily causal.
Delinquent youth with psychiatric illness have multiple risk factors
-- such as living in violent and impoverished neighborhoods. These
environments may increase their risk for violent behavior as well as
worsen their psychiatric illness.
“Providing comprehensive treatment to persons with some
psychiatric disorders could reduce violence,” said Katherine Elkington,
study first author and an assistant professor of clinical psychology in
psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and New York State
Psychiatric Institute. “We must improve how we address multiple problems -- including violent behavior -- as part of psychiatric treatment.”
The article was recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
The study used data from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a
longitudinal study of youth who were detained at the Cook County
Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago between 1995 and 1998.
Violence and psychiatric disorders were assessed via self-report in
1,659 youth aged 13 to 25 years interviewed up to four times between
three and five years after detention.
Other Northwestern authors include Karen M. Abram, Jessica A. Jakubowski, Mina K. Dulcan and Leah J. Welty
- See more at:
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/04/mental-disorders-dont-predict-future-violence.html#sthash.h66QUn9L.dpuf