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Mental disorder is one of the widely prevalent diseases in the population. It has affected a lot of people worldwide. The mentally ill individual is prone to develop violent behavior more than the general population.
This violent behavior is associated with the implication of homicidal incidents by these people. The aim of this paper is to relate the relationship between homicide and the mental illness.
This paper will discuss regarding the case study where the case of Mr. X will be discussed to relate mental illness with the homicidal event. It will brief regarding the definition f mental illness.
It will highlight the prevalence of mental illness and the prevalence of homicidal events by these mentally ill individuals.
It will give an insight into the factors as well as signs and symptoms associated with the identification of violent behavior by this mentally ill individual which can lead to homicide.
It will provide an overview regarding the role of eth family members, the psychologist/psychiatrist and the government in the treatment of these individuals.
Main body
Case study
Mr. X was a 45 years old married male who has been sent to jail for his attempt to kill one of the police officers. He had recently visited the hospital because of his condition with severe depression and multiple attempts to commit suicide.
His one of the most recent attempt of suicide was jumping from the roof. In addition to the depression, he had severe delusional thoughts. One of the delusional thought was that his wife and children are suffering from starvation.
He was then transferred to one of the police facilities where he tried to kill one of the police officers after snatching his gun. Mr. X had been receiving multiple drugs for his condition.
These drugs include citalopram 20mg daily, nortriptyline 50mg at bedtime, quetiapine 200mg at bedtime, zolpidem 10mg at bedtime, benztropine 2mg twice daily and lorazepam 1mg twice daily.
He had multiple admissions to the local community hospitals because of his serious mental condition.
He has a 25 years history of severe depression. He also had a history of acid reflux and hypertension.
A computed tomography (CT) scan was done a few months back which revealed mild cortical atrophy in the frontal region.
There was no evidence that the patient has been involved in any of the episodes of substance abuse in the past or present.
He uses to have been associated with drinking while his last drinking episode was two months back. Mr. X has a strong family history of mental illness as his mother was a patient of depression.
His mother used to receive electroconvulsive therapy in the past for her medical condition. Two of his first cousins also had mental illness and committed suicide in the past.
Mr. X was then moved to the mental health care facility. He was started on medication to control his anger.
Despite his medication, he continued o show aggressive behaviors and was involved in the incidence of punching other male patients without any reason and any provocation.
As the doctors approached him and inquired about his aggressive behavior, he answered that the people are after him. He also showed his intention that he is going to take action against all those individuals who have any ill thoughts against Mr. X and are thought to target him.
He w\s all alert in all of the incidences. He was also asking a different question to the staff and the other patients. Most of these questions were irrelevant and had no connection with the reality.
Some emergency medications were given to the patient to control his symptoms, but all were in vain.
He was anxious throughout his stay and continued to attack fellow patients. The patient used to get settled with the reassurance by the staff member.
His medication was taken into account to understand the reason for his aggressive behavior. Many of his medication was found to be associated with a decline in the aggressive behavior.
All the unnecessary medication from the regimen like sedatives, anticholinergics, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics and sleeping aids were either stopped or taper off.
Unfortunately, despite the implication of these steps, the condition of the patients did not settle, and he continued to have aggressive behavior.
The patient needed up in restraining condition as his condition was not settling and he was continuing to be a danger to other patients and people around him.
This case study of Mr. X is itself a question which is raised that there is an association between mental illness and homicide (Talbott, 2008).
There has been great debate regarding the association between mental disorder and violence. This association has been under consideration for a longer duration, and much debate is under way about it. Forensic mental health/ coursework tittle: draw on case examples to critically analyse the relationship between mental disorder and homicide
One of the serious violent behaviors among all is the homicide which needs to be evaluated further. Homicide is the condition where a person kills another person for various reasons.
Mental disorder is the psychological and behavioral syndrome which is present in any of the individual because of any of the psychological stress or disability. It is also associated with increased risk of pain, suffering, disability, loss of freedom and death (Stein et al., 2010).
Prevalence of mental illness and its association with homicide
There are some surveys for the identification of mental health prevalence among many of the patients. One in four of the patients will be affected by mental health illness worldwide.
Almost 450 million people all around the world are affected by mental health problem making it one of the most prevalent diseases of all times (Kessler et al., 2009).
Forensic mental health/ coursework tittle: draw on case examples to critically analyse the relationship between mental disorder and homicide. There is a treatment for all the mental disorder, but among all these patients two third of these patients do not seek any of the medical advice.
There are many countries that do not provide any of the services to the mentally ill patients. Almost 40% of the countries worldwide do not have any policy for the mental health.
30% of the countries do not hold any of the mental health programs while 25% of the countries do not have any legislation for dealing with the mental illnesses.
Forensic mental health/ coursework tittle: draw on case examples to critically analyse the relationship between mental disorder and homicide. Almost 33% of the countries allocate almost less than 1% budget on the mental illness while 33% countries are spending 1% of their spending on mental health (WHO, 2017).
There are a significant number of patients who are suffering from psychiatric illness and are involved in many of the criminal behaviors. There is also a higher prevalence of criminal behavior among the prisoners than the general population.
This creates a stance of a nuisance for the people who deal with these individuals. These people are more involved in the violent crime than the nonviolent crime (Cooke, 2010).
It has been seen that the people who are suffering from any of the mental illness are more prone to develop violent behavior. In one of the study, 8 to 10 % of the individuals having schizophrenia reported to have more violent behavior in the last 12 months than the general population who showed violent behavior in 2% of the population. One of the studies conducted in Australia showed that there was an increase in the crime rate ……
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