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 focuses upon four stakeholder groups: service users, their carers, mental health professionals and the general public. The development of a questionnaire to examine risk perceptions is described along with the data 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 risk: underclass, medical disempowerment, threat, vulnerability, self-harm and dependency. This suggests that stakeholders have a wider perception of risk than perceptions defined through current policy. These factors are subsequently examined in relation to a range of independent variables of which gender is the most significant variable in the perception of risk. The findings support results from studies of other forms of risk where women have been found to perceive risks greater than men.