Only about 1 in 30 predictions of assault by discharged psychiatric patients will be correct

EDITOR—The debate about the dangerousness of discharged psychiatric patients is interesting. 1 2 In public debate (and sometimes also among professionals) it is often claimed that discharged patients are responsible for a substantial number of violent assaults in society. This is sometimes held as a reason for more custodial, institutionalised treatment.

In 1987 Wistedt and I studied the possibility of using a prediction of the likelihood of violence, assessed at discharge from involuntary psychiatric care, as a means of reducing rates …