Mental illness in homicide-suicide: a review

Homicide followed by suicide (H-S) is a lethal event in which an individual kills another individual and subsequently dies by suicide. This article presents a review of research carried out in Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States of America over the past 60 years on the prevalence of mental illness among the perpetrators of H-S. Analysis of the available data indicated a great disparity in the results of the different studies. Overall, depression was the most frequent disorder reported (about 39% of the cases in the 20 studies that assessed depressive disorders), followed by substance abuse (about 20% in 10 studies) and psychosis (about 17% in 11 studies). This review, therefore, indicated that mental illness plays an important role in H-S. The prevention of these events depends on the identification and treatment of psychiatric disorder in potential perpetrators.