The Characteristics of Schizophrenia to Commit Homicide.

Korean J Leg Med. 2001 Oct;25(2):1-5. Korean.

National Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, Ministry of Justice.

Ewha Women's University, Graduate School of Education.

Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul.

The authors analyzed the mental evaluation reports for 5 years from 1995 to 1999, done in the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital for the schizophrenic patients who were prosecuted for homicide. The survey was done for the schizophrenics' sex, age, marital status, job, the first or second offense, a residential status, offense place, weapons used, chief motive for homicide, whether he or she was drunken at the time of commission of homicide, the victims' characteristics, the age of the onset of disease, previous psychiatric treatment history, previous criminal history, the duration of schizophrenic disease. In the age of onset of disease, 20-29 years old were the most, 30 cases of 67%. In the psychiatric treatment history for the chronic cases, there's statistical significance. For the chronics, it can be said that the experiences of psychiatric treatment were statistically significant. For the chief motive of homicide, delusion and hallucination were of 44%, but angers were 18 cases(40%) and excitements were 3 cases. What is specially noteworthy is the angers and excitements, consisting of 46.7% of all. And for the chronic cases, delusion and hallucination were the major motive with statistical significance.

Key Words : Homicide, Schizophrenia