Substance abuse, schizophrenia and risk of violence
A study published this week in the open access journal PLoS Medicine demonstrates that there is an association between schizophrenia and violence, but shows that this association is greatly increased by drug and alcohol abuse. Importantly, the study also finds that the risk of violence from patients with psychoses who also have substance use disorder is no greater than those who have a substance use disorder but who do not have a psychotic illness - in other words, schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses do not appear to be responsible for any additional risk of violence above the increased risk associated with substance abuse. Potentially this finding has implications for attempts to reduce violence in society, suggesting that strategies aimed at reducing drug and alcohol abuse would be more successful than focusing on mental illness...
