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Map** Violent Behaviors and Psychiatric Symptoms Among Male Psychiatric Inpatients from a Network Perspective

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Abstract

Psychiatric symptoms are common risk factors of violent behaviors among psychiatric patients. This study explored the interrelationship between violence and psychiatric symptoms in male psychiatric inpatients. This is a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2019. All patients admitted to the Male Psychiatry Unit of the Second **angya Hospital were consecutively recruited. The presence of five violent behaviors and eleven psychiatric symptoms were collected by reviewing medical records and were included as categorical variable in the network analyses. A total of 673 participants were included. The most central symptoms were “flight of ideas”, “property-oriented violence”, “emotional high”, “verbal violence”, “physical violence attempt”, and “physical violence” in the network of psychiatric symptoms and violent behaviors. The bridge symptoms connecting violence and psychiatric symptoms were “verbal violence”, “property-oriented violence”, “hyperbulia”, and “emotional high” according to the indices of bridge expected influence. The directed acyclic graph analysis revealed that “emotional high” and “hyperbulia” were the key psychiatric symptoms triggering violence, while “verbal violence” and “property-oriented violence” were the most upstream violent behavior. Verbal and property-oriented violence should be addressed in the risk assessment among male psychiatric inpatients. In addition, emotional high and hyperbulia are the potential treatment targets for violent behaviors.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all participants and clinicians involved in this study.

Funding

The study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFC3302001), Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (20DZ1200300, 21DZ2270800, and 19DZ2292700), Ministry of Finance PRC (GY2022Z-2), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (82,071,543), and Clinical Nursing Research Foundation of the Second ** Wang & Jiansong Zhou

  • Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, the Second **angya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China

    Yusheng Tian, Haozhe Li, Hui Chen, Jiali Liu, **anliang Chen, Huajia Tang, Shujian Wang & Weixiong Cai

  • Clinical Nursing Teaching and Research Section, The second **angya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China

    Yusheng Tian

    • Authors
    1. Wen Li
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    2. Yusheng Tian
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    3. Chen Chen
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    4. Haozhe Li
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    5. Hui Chen
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    Contributions

    Study design: Wen Li, Yusheng Tian, Jiansong Zhou. Data collection, analysis, and interpretation: Wen Li, Yusheng Tian, Chen Chen, Haozhe Li, Hui Chen, Jiali Liu, ** Wang, Weixiong Cai. Approval of the final version for publication: all co-authors.

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    Correspondence to Weixiong Cai or Jiansong Zhou.

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    The Ethics Committee of National Clinical Medical Research Center, the Second **angya Hospital, Central South University, approved the study protocol.

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    Li, W., Tian, Y., Chen, C. et al. Map** Violent Behaviors and Psychiatric Symptoms Among Male Psychiatric Inpatients from a Network Perspective. Psychiatr Q 94, 705–719 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-023-10056-5

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