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Introduction: The spousal homicide is committed on a partner or ex-partner of intimate life whatever the stature of this one. In France, it represents about 20% of total homicide. Its multifactorial origin makes its spotting complex. Objective: The aim of this study is to determine predictive factors of acting out, by analyzing sociodemographical, psychopathological and criminological features of men committing spousal homicide. Method: It is a descriptive and retrospective study of 37 spousal homicides (or attempts of homicides) files judged between 1999 and 2010 by the Court of Appael of Poitiers. An important number of variables concerning the perpetrators, the victims and the facts have been searched. Then, they have been sorted to establish profiles. Results: Men stand for 88% of spousal homicides perpetrators. Most of them are impulsive (80,4%), have a judicial (64,8%) and domestic violence (70,3%) previous history. Half drinks excessively. The acting out is often motivated by the couple breaking up (64,8%). Homicide is frequently committed with an excessive violence (54%). Before the crime, about half of the perpetrators had expressed death or suicide threats. Conclusion: Our study showed that spousal homicide is an unpremeditated act committed by men, facing the difficulty to accept their partner leaving. This crime is often linked to domestic violence and chronical alcoholism. Emphasizing these profiles allow to offer better-aimed prevention measures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to investigate which specific and especially neurocognitive factors related to schizophrenia, were associated with homicide risk. Methods: A systematic English-French Medline literature search of cohort studies, case-control studies and transversal studies published from January 1999 to December 2009 was performed combining the MeSH terms “schizophrenia”, “homicide”, “violence”, “mental process”, “cognition”, “risk”, “risk factors”,. Abstract selection was based on the STROBE checklist for observational studies and on the consort statement for clinical trials. Results: Of the 366 selected studies, 65 observational or prospective studies, 10 systematic reviews and meta-analysis and 2 interventional studies met the selection criteria and were included in the final analysis. Firstly, we highlighted that historical (past violence, juvenile detention, physical abuse, parental arrest record), dispositional (male gender, young age, low socioeconomic status) and contextual (recent divorce, unemployment, victimisation) factors could be considered as general homicide-related factors. Clinical factors (clinical paranoid, delusions of persecution or thought insertion, substance abuse, disorganized thinking, long duration of untreated psychosis, stopped monitoring or treatment) were more schizophrenia-specific factors for homicide. Most of the excess risk appears to be mediated by substance abuse. Secondly, our results suggested that schizophrenics with a history of aggressive behaviour compared to those without such history, had better performances on global neuropsychological tests exploring executive functions but performed more poorly as considering orbitofrontal functions. Conclusions: We suggest that every comprehensive psychiatric assessment should explore the risk of homicide, including historical, dispositional, contextual, clinical and neurocognitive (low insight capacity, impaired frontal functions) factors of violence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]