“Please tell me what happened”: A descriptive study on prevalence, disclosure and characteristics of victimization in people with a psychotic disorder

Abstract

Introduction Although people with a psychotic disorder are approximately four to six times more often victimized than the general population, victimization is not routinely assessed in mental healthcare. This study investigates prevalence, context and risk factors of victimization in patients with a psychotic disorder in the Northern, relatively rural region of the Netherlands. Moreover, disclosure rates and awareness of psychiatrists are examined. Method Information on personal crime (threats, assaults and sexual violence), property and other forms of crime, the context of victimization and disclosure was routinely assessed in 353 patients with a psychotic disorder who received care at a mental health facility. In addition, involved psychiatrists reported on last year’s victimization incidents in their patients. Results One third of the patients reported victimization in the previous year. More than half of the crimes were committed by someone acquainted and took place in the victim’s own home or a place familiar to the victim. Younger age, having a comorbid disorder, drug use and perpetration of a crime were all positively associated with victimization. Approximately half of the reported personal crimes were disclosed to a health care professional but only in 16% of the cases the involved psychiatrist report to know about the incident. Conclusion This study confirms that people with a history of psychosis have an increased risk of becoming the victim of a crime. Although our results suggest that in fifty percent of cases the patients did share the information with professionals, a substantial proportion of incidents appear to go still unnoticed.

Trauma and psychosis: a qualitative study exploring the perspectives of people with psychosis on the influence of traumatic experiences on psychotic symptoms and quality of life

“…In line with Tong et al 's [44] qualitative research on FEP, our participants agreed that conversations about trauma can be uncomfortable, yet they welcomed the idea of a professional asking them about their experiences, as long as they felt safe and not judged. This supports the evidence that rates of disclosure are not influenced by patient characteristics [32], but rather by external factors such as the reactions of those to whom the traumas are disclosed. Our results not only further stress the importance of routine assessment of trauma in psychosis, but also match meta-analytical evidence that trauma disclosure is ultimately beneficial [55].…”

“…However, clinicians' worries about investigating trauma are not the only barriers to trauma disclosure in psychosis. A descriptive study investigating victimization found that 11% of participants with experience of psychosis would not report any type of victimization to anyone, and that in 57% of the cases patients would not report any victimization even when the psychiatrists thought that their patients had been victimised [32]. These findings follow those of Jansen et al 's [25], who conducted a qualitative study to examine service users' experience of childhood trauma in the early phase of psychosis.…”

Trauma and Psychosis: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Perspectives of People with Psychosis

“…In line with Tong et al's [32] qualitative research on FEP, our participants agreed that conversations about trauma can be uncomfortable, yet they welcomed the idea of a professional asking them about their experiences as long as they felt safe and not judged. This supports the evidence that rates of disclosure are not in uenced by patient characteristics [31], but rather by external factors such as the reactions of those to whom the traumas are disclosed. Our results not only further stress the importance of routine assessment of trauma in psychosis, but also match meta-analytical evidence that trauma disclosure is ultimately bene cial [40].…”

“…A descriptive study investigating victimization found that 11% of participants with experience of psychosis would not report any type of victimization to anyone, and that in 57% of the cases patients would not report any victimization even when the psychiatrists thought that their patients had been victimised [31]. These ndings follow those of Jansen et al's [19], who conducted a qualitative study to examine service users' experience of childhood trauma in the early phase of psychosis.…”

Prevalence and risk of sexual violence victimization among mental health service users: a systematic review and meta-analyses

“…A further 8 papers were identified through citation tracking, resulting in a total of 26 papers to be included in the review. Six of these studies did not present gender disaggregated prevalence data [9][10][11][12][13][14] and this information could not be obtained from the authors upon contact. This left a total of 20 studies [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] which were included in the meta-analyses.…”