Whiting D, Gulati G, Geddes JR, et al. - The risk of perpetrating interpersonal violence has been investigated in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders when compared with general population control individuals via performing a systematic review and meta-analysis.

• Using the terms violen* or homicid* and psychosis or psychoses or psychotic or schizophren* or schizoaffective or delusional and terms for mental disorders while searching multiple databases, researchers identified a total of 24 studies of violence perpetration outcomes in 15 countries over 4 decades for inclusion in the meta-analysis (N = 51,309 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders; reported mean age of 21 to 54 years at follow-up; of those studies that reported outcomes separately by gender, there were 19,976 male individuals and 14,275 female individuals).

• A subgroup of register-based studies described the absolute risk of perpetrating violence of less than 1 in 20 in women with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and less than 1 in 4 in men with schizophrenia spectrum disorders over a 35-year period.

• Relative to men with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, women with schizophrenia spectrum disorders appeared to be at higher elevated relative risk for all violence-perpetration outcomes; however, there was substantial heterogeneity in the findings.