title: Situating violent ideations within the landscape of mental health: Associations between violent ideations and dimensions of mental health.
abstract: Violent ideations occur more frequently in individuals with mental health problems. They may be of interest in clinical contexts as possible indicators of dangerousness, as corollaries of mental health problems, as candidate treatment targets and as potentially playing a role in perpetuation or onset of symptoms. In spite of their relevance to mental health, some fundamental questions about their place within the broader landscape of mental health problems remain unanswered. To provide a basic characterisation of the relations between violent ideations and dimensions of mental health and provide a foundation for future research in this area we factor analysed a measure of violent ideations and an omnibus measure of mental health dimensions in a normative sample of 1306 youth (at age 17). Results supported a separate dimension of violent ideations with a small to moderate correlation with five other dimensions of mental health: internalising, prosociality, ADHD, indirect/proactive aggression, and physical/reactive aggression. Controlling for comorbidity among mental health dimensions, all but ADHD had unique relations with violent ideations. This suggests that violent ideations are potentially of broad relevance to mental health and related behaviours and there should be a greater research effort aimed at understanding their possible role in mental health.
authors.affiliation: Violence Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. Electronic address: am2367@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Aja Louise
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: Violence Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eisner
authors.affiliation: Violence Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Ingrid
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Obsuth
authors.affiliation: Criminological Research Unit, Chair of Sociology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Denis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ribeaud
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013850:Thinking; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: ADHD; Aggression; Internalising; Prosociality; Violent ideations