Families as Partners in Reducing Violence

University Of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary Violence, defined as homicide and assault, is one of the top five causes of death for individuals between the ages of 15-44. Individuals with mental illness (IMI) living in our communities are at higher risk than the general population for involvement in violence, as either perpetrators or victims. In the wake of numerous changes in service provision (including deinstitutionalization), family members have had to assume more caregiving responsibilities for their loved ones with mental illness. This means that family members have become both likely participants in violent encounters and potential resources for averting them. They can often initially recognize and forestall escalation toward serious violent incidents. This study will take the first step toward developing a community-based intervention for IMI who engage in violence. The project is significant because it will lay the needed foundation for systematically developing and testing a targeted intervention to reduce violent events by involving families/caretakers in forestalling these incidents. It will have a significant public health impact by promoting the positive adjustment of IMI to the community by providing support for families or persons taking care of these individuals. We will obtain narratives of the process prior to violent and potentially violent incidents involving the IMI from both the IMI and family members/caretakers. We will also collect structured measures of hypothesized key constructs. We will use a mixed methods approach to identify common and divergent themes in these incidents and to examine how identified constructs and processes escalate or reduce the chances of violence. The content and the analytic results will inform the development of a novel refinement of the family psychoeducation approach. The preliminary data and revised model generated by this proposed R21 is the essential starting point for further work that examines the impact of providing structured therapeutic support and education for family members in defusing violence involving their loved one. It examines whether the potential targets of the proposed intervention are related to the occurrence of violent incidents and provides material for the development of a refined intervention. Successful completion of this project will produce a unique intervention (based on a proven method for reducing relapse) that can be tested in future effectiveness trials. The intervention, if successful, will increase community adjustment and reduce negative outcomes (e.g., housing instability, criminal justice involvement) for potentially violent IMIs in the community.