Homicide rates are often used as an indicator of levels of crime. The reasons for this are both practical and conceptual. Practically speaking, homicide statistics tend to be more reliable than statistics for other forms of crime. Conceptually speaking, homicide and other forms of crime are often considered to be related: homicide is seen as the “tip of the iceberg” of underlying crime. However, it remains unclear whether this convention is empirically justifiable. Here, we review empirical evidence for the idea that homicide can serve as an indicator of crime more generally. We identify 31 previous studies that include information on this issue. Findings indicate that homicide is related to other forms of crime (particularly violent crimes) in larger scale, and cross-sectional analyses, but studies focusing on smaller levels of analysis identify substantial variation depending on location or time frame being considered. We conclude that homicide can function as an indicator of violent crime in general, but no clear pattern emerges as to what that means concretely. To those authors wishing to use homicide as an indicator of (violent) crime, we recommend that they conduct and report preliminary work to establish to what extent this notion is justified within the context and time frame on which they wish to focus.
Purpose A breast cancer diagnosis can threaten every aspect of a woman’s wellbeing, including her mental health. With the growing number of breast cancer survivors, longitudinal studies addressing mental health in this population are of increasing importance now more than ever. Therefore, the current study investigated trends in emotional functioning and psychosocial wellbeing of breast cancer survivors, and the demographic and treatment characteristics that may influence these trends. Methods Prospectively collected data of women treated for breast cancer at the Erasmus MC was analyzed in this study. Emotional functioning was measured using the EORTC-QLQ-C30, while psychosocial wellbeing was measured using the BREAST-Q. Type of surgery, age, family status and employment status of study participants were retrieved from patient files. Multilevel analysis was performed to identify trends in emotional functioning and psychosocial wellbeing and to determine the relationship between aforementioned characteristics and these trends. Results 334 cancer survivors were analyzed. Psychosocial wellbeing declined, but emotional functioning showed a steady improvement over time. Type of surgery was associated with changes in emotional functioning and family status with changes in psychosocial wellbeing: women who underwent breast reconstruction showed a steeper increase in their emotional functioning and women with no partner or children showed a greater decline in psychosocial wellbeing between baseline and 12 months after surgery. Conclusion These findings can be utilized by healthcare teams to identify breast cancer patients at risk for emotional problems and to provide adequate psychological support to those women who need help dealing with their emotions and self-concept in order to optimize clinical treatment.
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