Neuropsychological correlates of violence in schizophrenia

Thirty-one outpatient men with schizophrenia were assessed with various measures of lifelong history of physical violence as well as psychopathology, neuropsychological performance, and neurological intactness. Most of the results consisted of nonsignificant positive relationships between physical aggression and neuropsychological performance in these schizophrenia subjects. Some neuropsychological test performances did show significant positive correlations with levels of aggressivity. In contrast with previous studies that have established a relation between neuropsychological impairment (as opposed to performance) and violence in schizophrenia, subjects of the present study were high-functioning outpatients who may not have attained a level of neurological impairment inducing constant uncontrollable outbursts of irritative aggression in their daily living. The importance of defining in detail the clinical characteristics of the subjects studied and the type of violence assessed is discussed, and an ecological interpretation of these counterintuitive results is provided.