Psychosis And Criminal Offending: A Population-Based Data-Linkage Study

This population-based case-control study examines the association between psychosis and criminal convictions in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, using data from several health and offending administrative data collections. Cases were individuals diagnosed with psychosis between 2001 and 2012 (n= 86,461). For each case, two age- and sex-matched controls with no diagnosis of psychosis were selected. Criminal convictions were identified using the NSW Reoffending Database. Cases were approximately 5 times more likely to offend compared with controls, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 4.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [4.55, 4.81], and accounted for 10% of all criminal convictions in NSW between 2001 and 2015. The prevalence of at least one criminal conviction was 30% among cases compared with 6% among controls. The results from this study confirm previous work regarding the association between psychosis and criminal convictions. More work is needed to better articulate the mechanisms for this association to enable prevention strategies to be developed.