Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410011, Hunan, China.
BMC Psychiatry. 2023 Jan 18;23(1):48. doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-04508-8.
There is still a lack of comprehensive research on the profile of patients in forensic mental health hospitals in China. This study aims to investigate the socio-demographic, clinical, and offense-related characteristics of mentally ill offenders in the Hunan Provincial Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in China.
This study was conducted from November 1, 2018, to January 30, 2019. The data of socio-demographic, clinical, and offense-related characteristics of the patients were collected. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Modified Overt Aggression Scale (MOAS), and the Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) scale were used to measure their psychiatric conditions.
A total of 461 participants were enrolled in this study. Among them, 86.3% were males and 56.8% were unmarried; the average age of them was 44.7 ± 10.1 years, and the mean years of education were 7.51 ± 3.3 years. Before their current offense, a total of 345 patients (74.8%) had sought medical help for their mental illnesses. While 303 (87.8%) of these patients were prescribed antipsychotics, 254 (73.6%) failed to take them regularly. Of all the inpatients, 90.5% were diagnosed with schizophrenia; 385 (83.5%) engaged in homicidal offenses, with 54.0% of the victims being their family members. In homicide cases, the relatives were more likely to be victims of female patients. The mean length of stay in the forensic hospital was 8.02 ± 4.74 years, and over 80.0% of the patients had been hospitalized for over 5 years.
To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the profile of forensic patients receiving compulsory treatments in a forensic psychiatric hospital in China. These results add to the world literature on the characteristics of forensic patients and can help identify common treatment and risk-related needs of this population.
目前，中国法医精神病院患者的综合特征研究仍相对较少。本研究旨在调查中国湖南省法医精神病院精神病罪犯的社会人口学、临床和犯罪相关特征。
本研究于 2018 年 11 月 1 日至 2019 年 1 月 30 日进行。收集患者的社会人口学、临床和犯罪相关特征数据。采用简明精神病评定量表（BPRS）、改良外显攻击量表（MOAS）和临床总体印象严重度量表（CGI-S）评估其精神状况。
共纳入 461 名参与者。其中，86.3%为男性，56.8%未婚；平均年龄为 44.7±10.1 岁，平均受教育年限为 7.51±3.3 年。在当前犯罪前，共有 345 名患者（74.8%）因精神疾病寻求过医疗帮助。尽管其中 303 名（87.8%）患者被开具了抗精神病药物，但有 254 名（73.6%）未能规律服药。所有住院患者中，90.5%被诊断为精神分裂症；385 名（83.5%）实施了杀人犯罪，其中 54.0%的受害者为其家庭成员。在杀人案件中，女性患者的亲属更有可能成为受害者。在法医精神病院的平均住院时间为 8.02±4.74 年，超过 80.0%的患者住院时间超过 5 年。
据我们所知，这是第一项在中国法医精神病院调查接受强制治疗的法医患者特征的研究。这些结果增加了世界范围内关于法医患者特征的文献，并有助于确定该人群常见的治疗和风险相关需求。
