Are symptoms assessed differently for schizophrenia and other psychoses in legal insanity evaluations of violent crimes?

Table 4 Association between symptoms recorded in the assessment of mental state at the time of the offense and legal insanity in cases of violent crime, stratified by schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, n = 191, risk ratios (RR) estimated by generalized linear mixed model

		Time of offense
		Schizophrenia			Other psychotic disorders^c
Symptoms		Legal insanity^a		RR^b 95%CI	Legal insanity		RR 95% CI
Symptoms		Yes	No	RR^b 95%CI	Yes	No	RR 95% CI
P1 Delusions	Present	33 (89.2)	4 (10.8)	1.10	23 (60.5)	15 (39.5)	6.42***
P1 Delusions	Not/no info^d	51 (81.0)	12 (19.0)	[0.94–1.30]	5 (9.4)	48 (90.6)	[2.64–15.6]
P2 Conceptual disorganization	Present	15 (88.2)	2 (11.8)	1.06	6 (60.0)	4 (40.0)	2.21*
P2 Conceptual disorganization	Not/no info	69 (83.1)	14 (16.9)	[0.87–1.29]	22 (27.2)	59 (72.8)	[1.17–4.17]
P3 Hallucina-tory behavior	Present	26 (92.9)	2 (7.1)	1.15	8 (53.3)	7 (46.7)	2.03*
P3 Hallucina-tory behavior	Not/no info	58 (80.6)	14 (19.4)	[0.99–1.35]	20 (26.3)	56 (73.7)	[1.16–3.53]
Psychotic symptoms^e	Present	61 (92.4)	5 (7.6)	1.37*	15 (48.4)	16 (21.6)	2.23**
Psychotic symptoms^e	Not/no info	23 (67.6)	11 (32.4)	[1.05–1.78]	13 (21.7)	47 (78.3)	[1.22–4.10]
Impaired level of function^e	Present	44 (93.6)	3 (6.4)	1.24*	14 (56.0)	11 (44.0)	2.64**
Impaired level of function^e	Not/no info	40 (75.5)	13 (24.5)	[1.04–1.49]	14 (21.2)	52 (78.8)	[1.34–5.22]

^aThis refers to the conclusion of legal insanity at the time of the offense committed (in Norwegian legislation “Psychotic” in the legal sense). ^bRR = Risk ratio. ^cAll other diagnoses from F2 and F3-chapters, including SIPD, see Table 1. ^dThis category includes symptoms recorded as absent, and symptoms not mentioned. ^eThese are general terms used by the forensic experts in their description of a defendant’s mental state
^*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

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