Impacto dos problemas de sono na agressividade e implicação forense ao nível da tipologia de crime, psicopatologia do género

Abstract

Sleep problems are associated, both in animals and humans, with increased aggression. This issue investigation is relevant in the forensic context since aggression is a factor closely associated with crime. This work pretended to verify if sleep problems affect the aggressiveness levels in adult offenders in inpatient psychiatric treatment. Similarly, we also intended to verify to what extent the possible sleep problems may be implicated in the genesis of aggressive acts in that population, and conceptualize the phenomenon in terms of differences in gender, type of crime and relationship to psychopathology. The sample consisted in 70 adult offenders, clients of the Department of Forensic Psychiatry of the Centro Hospitalar e Psiquiátrico de Coimbra and the instruments that were used along with a sociodemographic questionnaire to characterize the sample was the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) (Buysse et al., 1989; Portuguese version adapted by Ramalho, 2007) to evaluate sleep, and the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) (Buss & Perry, 1992; Portuguese version adapted by Rego, 2005) to assess the levels of aggressiveness. The obtained results points to the existence of a relationship between sleep problems and levels of aggression, verifying that the higher the sleep problems the higher the levels of aggression. It was also found that this relationship is not the main factor in explaining the severity of the crime. Likewise, there were no statistically significant differences between genders regarding the levels of aggression, although there is a difference in the sleep problems, with women presenting major sleep problems. Finally, we found that psychopathology, regardless of the disorder have an important impact on the relationship between sleep problems and levels of aggressiveness.

Date of Award	11 May 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Eleonora C. V. Costa (Supervisor)