Personality disorder and violence in the national household population of Britain |
| |
| Authors: | Jeremy W. Coid Rafael Gonzalez Tian Zhang Min Yang Paul Bebbington |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, UK;2. Centre for Mental Health, Imperial College London, UK;3. Huaxi Medical Centre, Sichuan University, China;4. Division of Psychiatry, UCL, London, UK |
| |
| Abstract: | Background: Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is strongly associated with violence but the effects of other personality disorder (PD) categories are uncertain. Purpose: To investigate associations between 10 DSM-IV PD categories and effects of co-occurring disorders on self-reported violence. Method: Cross-sectional survey of 8397 adults aged 16–74 years in households in Great Britain. Results: ASPD contributed strongly to the burden of violence in the British population. Paranoid and obsessive–compulsive PD made additional independent contributions, and narcissistic PD contributed to intimate partner violence. The prevalence of violence correlated with the number of PD categories. Comorbid alcohol dependence further increased the risk. Conclusions: Risk of violence increases with increasing severity of PD, measured by the number of PD categories, and with co-occurring alcohol dependence. Not all PD categories are associated with violence, and avoidant PD was protective. Identification of targets for future interventions may be obscured using a classification based solely on severity. |
| |
| Keywords: | Violence risk population personality disorder |
|
|
