Experiencing risk factors - such as physical or sexual abuse, migration, cannabis consumption or problematic alcohol use - during teenage years may increase the chances of becoming a violently aggressive adult, a new study suggests.
The findings, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, suggested that children and adolescents who grow up with one or more of these environmental risk factors are likely to resort to violence, aggression and crime as adults, irrespective of an underlying mental illness.
“Our data support the concept of a disease-independent development of violent aggression in people exposed to multiple pre-adult environmental risk factors,” said lead author Hannelore Ehrenreich from the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Germany.
For the study, the researchers analysed data from six different study populations.
Overall, the data stemmed from more than 1500 people living with schizophrenia, as well as more than 550 members of the general population.