Factors associated with weapon use in maternal filicide.

The objective of this study was to identify factors associated with weapon use in a group of filicidal women. Clinical data were gathered from the charts of sixty filicidal women evaluated at Michigan's Center for Forensic Psychiatry or through Connecticut's Psychiatric Security Review Board from 1970 to 1996. Factors associated with weapon use were determined using chi squares, ANCOVAS, and a logistic regression. Results were compared to national statistics for child homicide from the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Weapon was defined as knife or gun for the study. Weapons were used by one of four women in our study. Guns were used by 13% of filicidal women and knives by 12%. Odds ratio showed that psychotic women were eleven times more likely to kill their child with a weapon than their non-psychotic counterparts (11.2; p = .008). Psychosis was present in every mother who killed her child with a knife and in seven of eight women who killed their children with a gun. Younger children were less likely to be killed with weapons (ANCOVA; F = 8.28; p = .006). This finding was independent of presence or absence of maternal psychosis. These results show that psychotic women are more likely than non-psychotic women to kill their children with weapons. They also show that mothers are more likely to use weapons to kill older children than younger children.

Prototypes of intrafamily homicide and serious assault among insanity acquittees.

Public concern with societal violence is intensified when persons who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) of having committed a homicide or serious assault are returned to the community. Successful management of such acquittees in the community requires a sophisticated understanding of the person and the illness within the larger context of the violent incident, the family, the community, and the culture. In this article, we present an analysis of psychotic violence within a family context. A qualitative study of 64 subjects who were found NGRI of killing or seriously injuring a family member resulted in four prototypes of intrafamilial homicide/assault: Till Death Us Do Part; Overwhelming Burden, Elimination of the Limit Setter; and Family-Focused Delusional Killing. The prototypes are presented as a model for developing management strategies both for future risk assessment and for successful transition of the insanity acquittee into the community.

Family interactions and sex education in the home.

Despite the tremendous growth of family systems theory in recent years, sex education within a family systems context has received little attention. This study examined patterns of interaction within the family and the possible relationship of these patterns to the amount of sex education occurring in the home. Ninety-six adolescents (ages 13-14, 43% male, 90% Caucasian) and the parents of 63 of them (61 mothers and 45 fathers) completed three questionnaires: (1) FACES-II, a measure which categorizes family interactions as Balanced, Midrange or Extreme based on the two dimensions of cohesiveness and adaptability; (2) the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale; and (3) the Home Discussion Questionnaire, a measure of the amount of discussion about 17 sex education topics. Adolescents who reported open communication and satisfaction with family interactions reported significantly more sex education in the home. Although mothers' reports of sex education were not related to their perceptions of family communication or interactions, fathers who reported the healthiest family interactions also reported the most involvement in the sex education of their adolescent.

PIP: Despite the tremendous growth of family system theory in recent years, sex education within a family system context has received little attention. This study examined patterns of interactions within the family and the possible relationship of these patterns to the amount of sex education occurring in the home. 96 adolescents (ages 13-15, 43% male, 90% Caucasian) and the parents of 63 of them (61 mothers and 45 fathers) participated in the study. 79% of the adolescents were 13 years of age while the average ages for their mothers and fathers was 39.1 years and 41.1 years respectively. 82% of the adolescents has 2-4 siblings and 68% came from intact families. 94% of the families were middle class. Both adolescents and parents completed 3 questionnaires: (1) FACES-II, a measure which categorizes family interactions as Basnced, Midrange, or Extreme based on the 2 dimensions of cohesiveness and adaptability; (2) the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale; and (3) the Home Discussion Questionnaire, a measure of the amount of discussion about 17 sex education topics. Adolescents who reported open communication and satisfaction with family interactions reported significantly more sex education in the home. Although mothers' reports of sex education were not related to their perceptions of family communication or interaction, fathers who reported the healthiest family interactions also reported the most involvement in the sex education of their adolescent.