In China, about 16.8 percent to 23 percent of homicides are
committed by people with depression with many of them being
avoidable if good psychiatric care was available, according to a
newly released research report.
More than 6,000 homicide cases committed by depressed people
were reported during the year 2002 to 2006, said the report made
public at the 10th national judicial psychiatric academic symposium
held in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong
Province.
"People suffering from depression often think their lives are
hard," said Zhao Zhenhuan, the head of a cerebral surgery hospital
in Guangzhou.
"If they choose to die, they want to die with their most loved
ones to end their painful life." Zhao added. He said that patients
suffering from depression would not go to that extreme if they
received timely and proper treatment.
Men and women acted differently in choosing their victims, the
Beijing Evening News reported the research report as
saying.
In all the 6,000-strong cases, 94.4 percent of the female
criminals killed their children while 63.2 percent of the male
criminals killed their wives or lovers, and altogether half of the
murderers committed suicide after killing, according to the
report.
Statistics from the China Association for Mental Health show,
China has more than 26 million people suffering from depression,
with 62.9 percent of them never seeing a psychological doctor. A
total of 50 percent to 70 percent of suicides or attempted suicide
cases were committed by these people.
About 250,000 Chinese take their own lives each year, making
suicide one of the major causes of death for Chinese people,
according to Michael R. Philips, China representative of the
International Association for Suicide Prevention and a consultant
with the Mental Health Department of the World Health Organization
(WHO).
The research found out that white collar people are not the sole
group who tend to suffer from depression. People in rural areas,
especially those married, young or middle-aged people who did not
have the opportunity to receive college education, also tend to
fall to suffer from the mental disorder.
A spate of tragedies caused by mentally ill people have aroused
concern in China.
Huang Wenyi, a mentally ill man in south China's Guangdong
Province, murdered five family members and an employee with a
hammer in late December last year.
Huang was given a death sentence with a two-year stay on July 11
this year.
In another case, Wang Ye, 32, who claimed a mental illness
history, hammered her husband to death at night in October 2006
because his husband made satirical comments on her skin before they
went to bed.
Wang was tried in an intermediate court in Beijing earlier this
week. No sentence has been given so far.
The report highlighted that between 16.8 and 23 percent of
homicides are committed by people with depression, the range of
figures representing different homicide figures for different
provinces.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)