Depression linked to crime in new study

  • Breaking
  • 26/02/2015

A new study by scientists at Oxford University shows depression is responsible for 46,000 violent crimes in Britain a year, including murder, sexual assault and robbery.

Experts undertook a huge study that discovered depressed people are three times more likely to commit a violent offence than the general population.

The study looked at 47,000 people who were diagnosed with depression in Sweden and compared them with people who were not suffering from the mental illness.

Researchers found that the three-fold risk even remained after allowing for a previous history of violence, socioeconomic background, substance abuse and previous criminality.

Professor Seena Fazel of the university said: "This isn't something that is talked about. We think the link between depression and violence has been neglected until now. The more symptoms they have the stronger the link becomes.

"The most common crime is assault, but there are sexual assaults and murders."

Professor Shirley Reynolds, Director of the University of Reading's Charlie Waller Institute for Evidence-based Psychological Treatment said: "We need to be extremely cautious about how we interpret these results. Depressed people are at more risk of harming themselves than they are of harming anyone else.

"Misusing these results could increase the stigma associated with depression with other mental health problems and the compassion we feel for the millions of people who have depression."

WENN.com

source: newshub archive