Substance Abuse and Violent Crime in Patients With Schizophrenia
- Glen Smith, MBBS glsmith@nsccahs.health.nsw.gov.auNorthern Sydney Central Coast Area Health ServiceSydney, Australia;
- Matthew Large, MBBS;
- Olav Nielssen, MBBS, MCrimSchool of PsychiatryUniversity of New South WalesSydney
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
To the Editor: The study by Dr Fazel and colleagues1 linked treatment for schizophrenia, conviction for violent offenses, and a history of substance misuse. The authors found that 27.6% of a sample of patients with schizophrenia and a coexisting substance use disorder committed a violent offense, compared with 8.5% of a control group of patients with schizophrenia without a substance use disorder and 5.1% of a general population control group. They concluded that schizophrenia alone has a modest association with violent offending on the basis of the small difference in the rate of conviction for violent offenses between the population control group and the non–substance-using schizophrenia group.
We are concerned that methods used in this study have 2 important limitations that might have led to a significant underestimation of the risk of violent crimes committed by people with schizophrenia. First, the population control group included people with substance use …
