The murder of a psychiatrist in Italy raises problems for all of us

Abstract

The brutal murder of 55-year-old Italian psychiatrist Barbara Capovani in April 2023, at the hands of a man she had assisted during a hospitalization four years prior, produced a wave of emotion within Italian psychiatry, with important echoes in the media. It is the death of a woman at work, a doctor, a psychiatrist, a professional of the National Health Service who has been taking care of serious mental illnesses for years. She was beaten to death by the attacker at the end of her shift at the psychiatric ward of the Santa Chiara Hospital in Pisa as she was untying her bicycle to go home. The man is now in jail on premeditated murder accusations. The day before he had gone to look for her in the hospital without success; the day of the crime he returned, dressed in dark clothes, masked with a hat on his head and a backpack on his shoulders. During his arrest, officers discovered a crossbow and some bolts in his home.

Keywords

• Italian mental health system
• Law 180
• mental health providers
• workplace violence
• forensic psychiatric treatment
• REMS