Schizophrenia and filicide: Reflection about a clinical case and literature review

Abstract

Filicide, a highly traumatic act, requires very specific meanings. In the international literature a large proportion of cases are correlated with maternal mental pathology. The case we report describes a tragic filicide by a mother with no psychiatric history. This acting out reveals schizophrenia. Thus, the main objective of our work is to emphasize the need for the diagnosis and early management of psychiatric illness, in particular in pregnant women in order to provide violence oneself or to others and to raise the problem of social prevention for these patients and their children and families.