Sociodemographic and psychological risk and protective factors for violence among individuals with mental illness

The data source for this work package is a quantitative study (sTOP n≈200), where we have previously studied brain characteristics, psychopathic traits (30), and childhood trauma. The already collected dataset includes four groups:

1. Psychosis patients with a history of severe violence (homicide, attempted homicide, serious assault against others). Location: forensic psychiatric departments.
2. Non-psychotic violent offenders serving a prison sentence for violence (including homicide, attempted homicide, and serious assault against others). Location: prisons designated for preventive detention.
3. Psychosis patients without a history of severe violence from the ongoing multicenter sTOP study at the University of Oslo and collaborating hospitals in Norway. Location: Psychiatric in- and outpatient clinics.
4. Healthy control subjects randomly selected from the national population register, from the TOP study at the University of Oslo, and from collaborating hospitals in Norway.

For all groups, the inclusion criteria are age between 18-65 years and an IQ score above 70. The two psychosis groups (1 and 2) are matched on clinical characteristics such as medication use and substance dependence. For the controls within preventive detention and the healthy controls outside, a history of psychosis is an exclusion criterion. Due to the legal system in Norway, individuals in group 3, before conviction, will have undergone a full psychiatric evaluation, concluding that they were not psychotic (i.e., criminally responsible in Norwegian legal terms). All participant samples/groups are matched on age, gender, and diagnosis and are thoroughly clinically characterized by specially trained psychologists and physicians. The project has permission to collect and incorporate court data on criminal sentencing and access to forensic expert examinations (“rettspsykiatrisk sakkyndig erklæring”) had been given by the Attorney General (“Riksadvokaten”).