Neurological soft signs and sociodemographic and clinical characteristics among patients with schizophrenia with and without a history of violence

Abstract

Neurological soft signs, considered to be an endophenotype in schizophrenia patients, have also been investigated in patients with schizophrenia as a clinical correlate of violent/aggressive behavior. We aimed to establish a homogeneous group in the context of violent behavior by including patients with schizophrenia who were admitted to a forensic psychiatry service and who were under protection. The pre-criminal employment rate for the case group was lower than that for the control group, and the history of substance abuse was significantly higher in criminal schizophrenia patients. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups when the neurological soft symptoms, PANSS scores, Stroop test scores, and other sociodemographic factors were compared.

Keywords:

• Crime
• neurological soft signs
• schizophrenia
• violence

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Tarık Sağlam has declared no conflicts of interest.

Cana Aksoy Poyraz has declared no conflicts of interest.

Hasan Gökçay has declared no conflicts of interest.

Fatih Öncü has declared no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (see the ‘Settings and Sample’ section in the manuscript for more details) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Authors’ contributions

T.S.: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing–original draft reparation; C.A.P.: conceptualization, methodology, writing–reviewing and editing; H.G.: writing–reviewing and editing, supervision; F.Ö.: methodology, writing–reviewing and editing.