PERCEIVED RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MENTAL-ILLNESS - BEYOND HOMICIDE AND SUICIDE

This paper presents an exploratory study of factors of perceived risk related to people who experience serious mental illness. The study foc uses upon four stakeholder groups: service users, their carers, mental health professionals and the general public. The development of a que stionnaire to examine risk perceptions is described along with the dat a collection techniques employed in the study. A large number of data sets (n = 1076) was obtained from the four groups of stakeholders (n = 550). Factor analysis of the data produced six factors of perceived r isk: underclass, medical disempowerment, threat, vulnerability, self-h arm and dependency. This suggests that stakeholders have a wider perce ption of risk than perceptions defined through current policy. These f actors are subsequently examined in relation to a range of independent variables of which gender is the most significant variable in the per ception of risk. The findings support results from studies of other fo rms of risk where women have been found to perceive risks greater than men. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.