Patient Violence In Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Investigating Family Based Factors

Patient violence in severe mental health conditions such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders often attracts substantial attention in mainstream media. Considerable efforts have gone into improving our understanding of key risk factors for perpetrating violence, which include patient age, gender, and substance misuse.The pattern of evidence suggests that family members are the most common target of patient violence. Interestingly, our understanding of family factors related to the perpetration and the impact of patient violence in severe mental health problems is limited. Previous work from our group has explored carer reports of patient violence in early and long-term psychosis populations but little is known about family appraisals of patient violence and its implications for family functioning. Similarly, data is scarce on how we can best intervene with families where patient initiated violence is an ongoing risk.

In schizophrenia spectrum disorders, the proposed project seeks to extend our understanding of family factors (including risk factors) associated with patient violence and the impact on family relationships. We hope the findings will be used to develop a typology of patient violence in caregiving relationships and inform a modified novel family-based intervention. The project will focus on the following objectives:

To examine reports and patterns of domestic violence in national data
To undertake a systematic review of family-based violence
To qualitatively explore carer and patient experiences of family violence
To examine outcomes of a brief psychological intervention focusing on family based violence.
The project is a supervision collaboration between the Department of Psychology and Department of Forensics and Neurodevelopmental Sciences.

Further reading:

Onwumere J. Zhou Z, Kuipers E (2018). Informal caregiving in psychosis: reviewing the impact of patient-initiated violence. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1530. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01530

Smith, L., Onwumere, J., Craig, TK, Kuipers, E (2018). Caregiver correlates of patient-initiated violence in early psychosis. Psychiatric Research doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.09.011

Onwumere J, Parkyn G, Learmonth S, Kuipers, E (2018). The last taboo: the experience of violence in first episode psychosis caregiving relationships. Psychology and Psychotherapy Theory Research Practice. DOI:10.1111/papt.12173

Onwumere, J., Grice S., Garety P., Bebbington, P., Dunn, G., Freeman, D., Fowler, D & Kuipers, E. (2014). Caregiver reports of patient-initiated violence in psychosis. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 59, (7), 376-384


Supervisors:

Dr Juliana Onwumere (https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/juliana.1.onwumere.html)

Dr Joel Harvey (https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/joel.harvey.html)

Dr Deirdre MacManus (https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/deirdre.1.macmanus.html)