Psychiatric Disorder and Violent Behaviour

Violent behaviour of patients is a common problem in emergency psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis, management and treatment of which is very difficult. The aim was to identify risk and protective factors of violent behaviours and to establish the degree to which the HCR-20 predicts the frequency and severity of violent behaviour. the highest rate of violence in a decreasing scale is reported in subjects with antisocial and borderline personality disorders (91 %), Bipolar disorders (70 %), substance abuse disorders (66 %) and psychotic patients (57 %). The fig.1 demonstrate the high correlation amongst positive value of HCR-20 test with risk for violence behaviour (O. R=7.91, 95 %CI 4.3-14.4). The variables that mostly accompany the value of HCR-20 test are H1 (previous violence behavior) in 86 % of the sample, H5 (substance abuse problems) in 81 %, H6 (major mental illneses) in 69 %, H9 (personality disorders) in 61 % and C3 (active symptoms of major mental illnesses) in 79 % of the sample. Individual HCR20 score represents a good indicator suggesting appropriate measures to be taken in order to prevent unwanted consequences in EW enviorenment.