Neuropsychological correlates of self-reported impulsivity and informant-reported maladaptive behaviour among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury history.

OBJECTIVE: Frontal lobe deficits resulting from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and/or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been linked to impulsive behaviour. We sought to examine whether neuropsychological performance predicted self-reported impulsivity and informant-reported maladaptive behaviour. METHOD: We administered the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) to 116 Iraq/Afghanistan-era veterans diagnosed with a history of TBI and PTSD. RESULTS: Poorer performance on D-KEFS Stroop Task (both colour and word, separately) and Trail making (letter sequencing and motor speed) tasks and higher PTSD symptom severity were associated with higher self-reported impulsivity. Trail making letter sequencing performance was negatively associated with informant-reported maladaptive behaviour. Regression analyses revealed PTSD symptom severity and Trail making letter sequencing best predicted self-reported impulsivity, even when accounting for age, sex, and education. Only Trail making letter sequencing predicted informant-reported maladaptive behaviour when accounting for other variables in the model. CONCLUSIONS: Attention and processing speed impairments and PTSD symptom severity appear to be important predictors of impulsivity and problematic behaviour among veterans. Findings have implications for theoretical models of aggression and violence and inform the assessment and treatment of individuals with TBI and PTSD.

Military Versus Civilian Murder-Suicide.

Previous studies have implicated significant differences between military members and civilians with regard to violent behavior, including suicide, domestic violence, and harm to others, but none have examined military murder-suicide. This study sought to determine whether there were meaningful differences between military and civilian murder-suicide perpetrators. Using data from the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), military ( n = 259) and civilian ( n = 259) murder-suicide perpetrators were compared on a number of demographic, psychological, and contextual factors using chi-square analyses. Logistic regression was used to determine which variables predicted membership to the military or civilian perpetrator groups. Military murder-suicide perpetrators were more likely to be older, have physical health problems, be currently or formerly married, less likely to abuse substances, and to exhibit significantly different motives than civilian perpetrators. Logistic regression revealed that membership to the military, rather than the civilian, perpetrator group was predicted by age, physical health problems, and declining heath motive-reflecting the significance of a more than 15-year difference in mean age between the two groups. Findings point to the need to tailor suicide risk assessments to include questions specific to murder-suicide, to assess attitudes toward murder-suicide, and to the importance of assessing suicide and violence risk in older adult military populations.

Mining for Murder-Suicide: An Approach to Identifying Cases of Murder-Suicide in the National Violent Death Reporting System Restricted Access Database.

The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) is a United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) database of violent deaths from 2003 to the present. The NVDRS collects information from 32 states on several types of violent deaths, including suicides, homicides, homicides followed by suicides, and deaths resulting from child maltreatment or intimate partner violence, as well as legal intervention and accidental firearm deaths. Despite the availability of data from police narratives, medical examiner reports, and other sources, reliably finding the cases of murder-suicide in the NVDRS has proven problematic due to the lack of a unique code for murder-suicide incidents and outdated descriptions of case-finding procedures from previous researchers. By providing a description of the methods used to access to the NVDRS and coding procedures used to decipher these data, the authors seek to assist future researchers in correctly identifying cases of murder-suicide deaths while avoiding false positives.

The interpersonal worlds of bullies: parents, peers, and partners.

Research has yet to examine the social influences of parents, peers, and partners on bullying. This study explored the impact of social relationships on bullies, victims, bully/victims, and uninvolved participants. A sample of 370 college-age participants was asked about bullying, family environment, friends' illegal behavior, and conflict resolution tactics in romantic relationships. Results indicated controls came from more secure and engaged families. Bully/victims reported friends engaging in more illegal behaviors than victims and uninvolved participants. Bullies and bully/victims reported more psychological coercion from their romantic partner. A logistic regression revealed peer illegal behaviors, psychological aggression, physical assault, and sexual coercion in romantic relationships best predicted bullies from non-bullies (67.3%). Based on these results, the interpersonal world of those involved with bullying significantly impacts behaviors.