Saúde mental, psicopatia e adversidade ao longo da vida: um estudo comparativo entre a criminalidade masculina e a criminalidade feminina

Abstract

Background: The literature on crime has been mostly associated with males, although in recent years there has been a growing focus on female criminality. There are studies that attempt to compare women and men who commit crime. Some indicating that men and women are indistinguishable and others that postulate differences, mainly in terms of mental health, psychopathy, and adversity history. However, the studies are not consensual. Objective: The present study seeks to compare male and female criminality at the level of mental health, psychopathy, and childhood adversity. Method: The sample consisted of 322 inmates, 180 (55.9%) males and 138 (42.9%) females. For data collection we applied a Sociodemographic and Criminal Questionnaire and three psychometric instruments - the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) to assess mental health, the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-Short Form (SRP-SF) to assess psychopathy and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - Short Form (CTQ-SF) to assess childhood adversity. IBM SPSS Statistics version 28 was used to perform the statistical analysis of the data, with three MANOVAs (Multivariant Analysis of Variance). Results: No statistically significant differences were found in mental health; significant differences were found in psychopathy, but only in the lifestyle and antisocial dimensions; there were differences in adversity, but these were only significant in sexual abuse, with higher values in females. Conclusion: Male and female inmates have shown to have mental health, psychopathy and adversity problems in childhood and throughout life. The results, although mostly not significant, suggest the need for prevention and intervention programs with the Portuguese inmate population, regardless of gender. Keywords: Mental Health, Psychopathy, Adversity, Male Criminality and Female Criminality.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	Portuguese
Supervisor	Ana Rita Conde Dias (Supervisor) & Cláudia Noémia Soares de Sousa (Supervisor)