Achim Wolf

Evidera

Background Persons with noncommunicable diseases have elevated rates of premature mortality. The contribution of psychiatric comorbidity to this is uncertain. We aimed to determine the risks of premature mortality and suicide in people with common noncommunicable diseases, with and without psychiatric disorder comorbidity. Methods and findings We...

Background Violence perpetrated by psychiatric inpatients is associated with modifiable factors. Current structured approaches to assess inpatient violence risk lack predictive validity and linkage to interventions. Methods Adult psychiatric inpatients on forensic and general wards in three psychiatric hospitals were recruited and followed up pros...

Purpose To assess the feasibility of using Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data for identifying populations of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) eligible for a hypothetical pragmatic trial. Methods A retrospective multidatabase cohort study using CPRD primary care and linked secondary care data to describe the c...

Objective We aimed to systematically review recidivism rates in individuals given community sentences internationally. We sought to explore sources of variation between these rates and how reporting practices may limit their comparability across jurisdictions. Finally, we aimed to adapt previously published guidelines on recidivism reporting to inc...

Assessment of suicide risk in individuals with severe mental illness is currently inconsistent, and based on clinical decision-making with or without tools developed for other purposes. We aimed to develop and validate a predictive model for suicide using data from linked population-based registers in individuals with severe mental illness. A natio...

Scalable and transparent methods for risk assessment are increasingly required in criminal justice to inform decisions about sentencing, release, parole, and probation. However, few such approaches exist and their validation in external settings is typically lacking. A total national sample of all offenders (9072 released from prisoners and 6329 in...

Background Current approaches to stratify psychiatric patients into groups based on violence risk are limited by inconsistency, variable accuracy, and unscalability. Methods Based on a national cohort of 75 158 Swedish individuals aged 15–65 with a diagnosis of severe mental illness (schizophrenic-spectrum and bipolar disorders) with 574 018 patie...

With the increase in the number of risk assessment tools and clinical algorithms in many areas of science and medicine, this Perspective article provides an overview of research findings that can assist in informing the choice of an instrument for practical use. We take the example of violence risk assessment tools in criminal justice and forensic...

Suicide risk assessment tools do not perform worse than clinical judgement - Volume 211 Issue 3 - Seena Fazel, Achim Wolf

Background: Current approaches to assess violence risk in secure hospitals are resource intensive, limited by accuracy and authorship bias and may have reached a performance ceiling. This study seeks to develop scalable predictive models for violent offending following discharge from secure psychiatric hospitals. Methods: We identified all patie...

Background: Current approaches to stratify patients with psychiatric disorders into groups on the basis of violence risk are limited by inconsistency, variable accuracy, and unscalability. To address the need for a scalable and valid tool to assess violence risk in patients with schizophrenia spectrum or bipolar disorder, we describe the derivatio...

Chan and colleagues[1][1] provide an overview of risk factors and risk scales for suicide following self-harm. However, their conclusions go beyond their review findings, and we think that discounting the potential value of risk scales on the basis of imperfect tools designed for other purposes is

An increasing number of metrics are used to measure the impact of research papers. Despite being the most commonly used, the 2-year impact factor is limited by a lack of generalisability and comparability, in part due to substantial variation within and between fields. Similar limitations apply to metrics such as citations per paper. New approaches...

Background Current approaches to stratify patients with psychosis into risk groups are limited by inconsistency, variable accuracy, and unscalability. Methods This paper will present an overview of current approaches based on a systematic review. It will also present a novel scalable approach based on a total national cohort of 75 158 Swedish indi...

Relative risks of violence in psychiatric patients are high compared to the general population and existing evidence in non-psychiatric populations may not translate to reductions in violence in psychiatric populations. We searched 10 databases including Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus, from inception until August 2015 for systematic reviews and...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155906.].

Objective: To study the effect of reducing Facebook use for two weeks on self-reported mental wellbeing in a student population. Methods: Students at the University of Oxford (n=78) participated in a randomised crossover study which consisted of two consecutive two-week periods of minimised Facebook use, followed by normal Facebook use, or vice-ver...

Objectives: To determine rates and risk factors for adverse outcomes in patients discharged from forensic psychiatric services. Method: We conducted a historical cohort study of all 6,520 psychiatric patients discharged from forensic psychiatric hospitals between 1973 and 2009 in Sweden. We calculated hazard ratios for mortality, rehospitalisati...

Rates of adverse outcome by diagnostic group, stratified by comorbid substance use disorder (SUD). (DOCX)

Rates of adverse outcome by diagnostic group, stratified by comorbid personality disorder (PD). (DOCX)

Objectives To systematically review recidivism rates internationally, report whether they are comparable and, on the basis of this, develop best reporting guidelines for recidivism. Methods We searched MEDLINE, Google Web, and Google Scholar search engines for recidivism rates around the world, using both non-country-specific searches as well as t...

Background Depression increases the risk of a range of adverse outcomes including suicide, premature mortality, and self-harm, but associations with violent crime remain uncertain. We aimed to determine the risks of violent crime in patients with depression and to investigate the association between depressive symptoms and violent crime in a cohort...

Background People with schizophrenia and related disorders are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes, including conviction of a violent offence, suicide, and premature mortality. However, the rates of, and risk factors for, these outcomes need clarification as a basis for population-based and targeted interventions. We aimed to determine rates a...

Unlabelled: : Importance: Longer-term mortality in individuals who have survived a traumatic brain injury (TBI) is not known. Objectives: To examine the relationship between TBI and premature mortality, particularly by external causes, and determine the role of psychiatric comorbidity. Design, setting, and patients: We studied all persons bo...

Individual level risk factors for violence have been widely studied, but little is known about country-level determinants, particularly in low and middle-income countries. We hypothesized that income inequality, through its detrimental effects on social cohesion, would be related to an increase in violence worldwide, and in low and middle-income co...

We set out to examine the relationship between epilepsy, mental illness, and premature mortality. We linked nationwide Swedish population registers to obtain data on epilepsy diagnoses, co-occurring psychiatric illnesses, socio-demographic information and causes of death. We looked at the entire population of patients with epilepsy in Sweden under...

Epilepsy is associated with high rates of premature mortality, but the contribution of psychiatric comorbidity is uncertain. We assessed the prevalence and risks of premature mortality from external causes such as suicide, accidents, and assaults in people with epilepsy with and without psychiatric comorbidity. We studied all individuals born in Sw...

Objectives: To examine the risk of suicide and suicide attempts in prisoners with bipolar disorder and other psychiatric disorders compared with prisoners without psychiatric disorders. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies comparing suicide outcomes in prisoners with bipolar disorder and other psyc...

Objective: To investigate experienced stigma and self-stigma in patients with schizophrenia in mainland China. Methods: Ninety-five patients with schizophrenia, enrolled between January 2011 and March 2011, completed Chinese versions of two self-report questionnaires: the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness (ISMI) scale and the Modified Consum...

100 million people worldwide are homeless; rates of mortality and morbidity are high in this population. The contribution of infectious diseases to these adverse outcomes is uncertain. Accurate estimates of prevalence data are important for public policy and planning and development of clinical services tailored to homeless people. We aimed to esta...