Empirical studies of violence and mental illness have used many different methods. Current state-of-the-art methods gather information from both subject and collateral interviews as well as official records. Typically these sources are treated as additive. Any report of a violent incident from any source is treated as true and all reported incidents are added to generate estimates of frequency. This paper presents a new statistical technique that uses the level of agreement between the sources of data to adjust those estimates. The evidence suggests that, although the additive technique for using multiple sources correctly estimates how many people are involved, it substantially underestimates the number of incidents. The new technique substantially reduces both false negatives and false positives.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Cocozza, J. J., & Steadman, H. J. (1978). Prediction in psychiatry: An example of misplaced confidence in experts. Social Problems, 25, 265–276.
Lidz, C. W., Mulvey, E. P., & Gardner, W. P. (1993). The accuracy of predictions of dangerousness to others. JAMA, 269, 1007–1011.
Lie, R., Heusch, I., et al. (1994). Maximum likelihood estimations of congenital malformations using double registration systems. Biometrics, 50, 433–444.
Link, B., & Stueve, A. (1994). Psychotic symptoms and the violent/illegal behavior of mental patients compared to community controls. In J. Monahan & H. Steadman (Eds.), Violence and mental disorder: Developments in risk assessment (pp. 137–159). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Monahan, J., & Arnold, J. (1996). Violence by people with mental illness: A consensus statement by advocates and researchers. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 19, 67–70.
Monahan, J., Steadman, H. J., Silver, E., Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., Mulvey, E. P., et al. (2001). Rethinking risk assessment: The MacArthur study of mental disorder and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mulvey, E. P., Shaw, E. C., & Lidz, C. W. (1994). Why use multiple sources in research on patient violence in the community? Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 4, 253–258.
Steadman, H. J., Mulvey, E. P., Monahan, J., Robbins, P. C., Appelbaum, P. S., Grisso, T., et al. (1998). Violence by people discharged from acute psychiatric inpatient facilities and by others in the same neighborhoods. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55, 393–401.
Steadman, H. J., & Keveles, G. (1972). The community adjustment and criminal activity of the Baxstrom patients: 1966–1970. American Journal of Psychiatry, 129(3), 304–310.
Swanson, J. (1994). Mental disorder, substance abuse, and community violence: An epidemiological approach. In J. Monahan & H. Steadman (Eds.), Violence and mental disorder: Developments in risk assessment (pp. 101–137). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Swanson, J., Holzer, C. E., Ganju, V. K., & Jono, R. T. (1990). Violence and psychiatric disorder in the community: Evidence from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area surveys. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 41, 761–770.
Torrey, E. F. (1998). Violent behavior by individuals with serious mental illness: The role of treatment compliance and insight. In X. F. Amador & A. S. David (Eds.), Insight and psychosis (p. 366). London: Oxford University Press.
Torrey, E. F., & Zdanowicz, M. (2001). Outpatient commitment: What, why, and for whom. Psychiatric Services, 52, 337–341.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Work on this paper was partially supported by NIMH Grants: NIMH Grant #MH57685 and MH40030.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Lidz, C.W., Banks, S., Simon, L. et al. Violence and Mental Illness: A New Analytic Approach. Law Hum Behav 31, 23–31 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9015-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9015-2