Citation

Grubaugh AL, Frueh BC. J. Clin. Psychiatry 2006; 67(9): 1472-1473.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Medical University of South Carolina Charleston, South Carolina.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Physicians Postgraduate Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

17017840

Abstract

There is strong evidence that adults with severe mental illness evidence high rates of both lifetime trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) relative to the general population. However, little attention has yet been paid in this population to intimate partner violence (IPV), a form of trauma that is often recurrent and linked with long-term mental and physical health consequences. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional study of a random sample of public-sector psychiatric patients recruited from a day-hospital program from 2002 to 2004. Our results are all the more troublesome indicating that over 90% of suicidal inpatients reported a past year history of IPV victimization and perpetration. These findings clearly suggest that the presence of severe and recurrent forms of IPV place individuals with severe mental illness, who already constitute a vulnerable population, at extreme risk. Thus, as public-sector clinicians increase their efforts to screen for trauma and PTSD in this population, particular attention should be paid to assessing for the presence and severity of both IPV victimization and perpetration using more comprehensive IPV measures such as the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Language: en