Sociology

Injury prevention

Mental illness

Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test

Poison control

Clinical psychology

Mental health

Psychiatry

Ethnic group

Psychology

Anthropology

Cannabis

Comorbidity

Harm

Medical emergency

Suicide prevention

Medicine

Social psychology

Australasian Psychiatry

We examined the extent to which ethnicity, cannabis and alcohol use could predict prevalence of violence and self-harm in an inpatient psychiatric sample.We collected demographic and clinical data in a series of 141 adult psychiatric inpatients in Hamilton, New Zealand. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test, Revised (CUDIT-R) were used to measure substance use. Clinical assessment and file review were used to verify histories of self-harm and violence.It was found that 66% had a history of violence, 54% of self-harm, and 40% of both; only 20% had neither. Cannabis use was found to significantly predict lifetime history of violence ( p = 0.02); other independent variables (gender, age, ethnicity, alcohol use, psychiatric diagnosis) did not. Self-harm was strikingly predicted by female gender ( p < 0.001), as well as by measures both of cannabis ( p = 0.025) and alcohol use ( p = 0.036); age, ethnicity and diagnosis did not reach significance. Less than 10% of patients were engaged with drug or alcohol services.Cannabis use is a significant predictor of lifetime violence among the severely mentally ill, while both alcohol and cannabis use predict self-harm. Few affected patients receive specific treatment for substance use comorbidity.

Violence and self-harm in severe mental illness: inpatient study of associations with ethnicity, cannabis and alcohol