Substance use disorder and risk of violence - VIORMED study (2014-2016)

Substance use disorder and risk of violence is a dataset related to the VIORMED (VIOlence Risk and MEntal Disorders) study carried out in 2014-2016. The aim of the study is to compare patients with severe mental disorders and with different substance use behaviours in terms of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics and assess violent behaviour during one-year follow-up. The collected data deal with a prospective cohort study conducted at residential facilities and at four Departments of Mental Health in Italy. The study included 378 participants with Severe Mental Disorders (SMD) and were categorized as Persons with Current Substance Users (PCSU), Persons with Former Substance Users (PFSU) and Persons with Non-Substance Users (PNSU). Patients were assessed with several standardised instruments used in the feld of psychiatric research. Data point out that PFSU showed significantly higher scores for lifetime history of aggressive behaviour compared with patients with PNSU. The results of the close one-year monitoring show a significantly higher risk of violence for patients with SMD who are PCSU, compared to PFSU and PNSU.