Abstract

This study was designed to analyze subjectively the issued twenty events which was happened in the past to find out perceived types and level of stress in schizophrenic people. The subjects were selected on the basis of psychiatric diagnosis and psychological tests. The open questionnaire was used to find perceived types of stress in schizophrenic people. The stress perceived in schizophrenic people were totally divided into nine the types such as conflicts with parents or family members, failure and frustration in occupation, not promoted, marital discords, unrealistic contents of thought, problem of interpersonal relationship, absence of stress, and lastly illness and readmission. Especially, the determinant stress happened before one week of murder was conflicts with parents or family members and failures and unrealistic contents of thought. Also the two stressors revealed the highest level of stress. Based on these results of fifteen cases, schizophrenic murders previously experienced a determinant stress triggering the murder and showed that conflict with parents or family members and failures and unrealistic contents of thought were main stress type and level. (Korean J Str Res 2008;16:387∼392)

• Keywords: Homicide, Schizophrenic disorder, Stress type, Stress severity;