title: Studies of aggressive behaviour in schizophrenia: is there a response bias?
abstract: Of 73 patients who met selection criteria to enter into a study on aggressive behaviour in schizophrenia, 11 patients (15.1%) did not participate. The participants and non-participants were similar in age, gender ratio and proportion who had aggressive behaviour. The participants, however, had a longer duration of illness, a longer duration of current admission, were more likely to suffer from residual schizophrenia, but less likely to suffer from disorganized schizophrenia and were less severely ill than the non-participants. These results indicate the need, in studies of aggressive behaviour in schizophrenia, to consider non-response bias as a confounding variable.
authors.affiliation: University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Schweitzer
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Yastrubetskaya
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Crowley
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tuckwell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012107:Research Design; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D015983:Selection Bias; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric