People with a severe mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anyone else - unless they abuse drugs or alcohol, a study has suggested.
The relationship between bipolar disorder and violence largely came down to substance abuse, researchers said..
The study compared the behaviour of people with the disorder with their siblings and the wider population.
One of the authors said it was probably more dangerous to walk past a pub at night than a mental health hospital.
The study, led by Oxford University's Department of Psychiatry, examined the lives and behaviour of 3,700 people in Sweden who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression.
The disorder leads to sudden and unpredictable mood swings which are more severe than the normal ups and downs of life.
The team, led by consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Seena Fazel, wanted to examine the public perception that there is a link between the disorder and violent crime.
They did this by comparing the experiences of the patients with some 4,000 siblings of people with bipolar disorder - and a further group of 37,000 people selected from the general population.
The research, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that the rates of violent crime among people who were mentally ill and abused substances were no different to those among the general population who abused substances.
In each group, the rate of violent crime was between six and seven times higher than in the general population.
BBC News
