Violence in schizophrenia

There is nothing more terrifying than unpredicted violence. Patients with mental illness sometimes commit bizarre, unexplained, and arbitrary acts of violence, which often provoke media attention. Recent, well-designed, large-scale studies controlling for the sociodemographic factors associated with violence in the general population show a significant, albeit modest, increased prevalence of violence in menial illness compared with the general population.1 Although the vast majority of violent acts in today's society are not related to menial illness and a great majority of patients with schizophrenia have never been violent, studies have confirmed a relationship between schizophrenia and violence. The consequent stigma attached to the disease has negatively influenced both patients with schizophrenia and their relatives alike.