Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T23:44:00.428Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Poisoning Cases: Suicide or Accident

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

B. M. Barraclough
B. M. Barraclough*
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, Sussex
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The accurate classification of causes of death is fundamental to progress in preventive medicine. Classifying death by poisoning may be specially difficult because the exact distinction between deliberate and accidental poisoning is inherently difficult for the coroner to make. Thus figures for suicidal poisoning are likely to be under-estimated because of ambiguous evidence and because of the stringent legal definition of suicide which coroners must apply. An examination of the drugs involved in poisoning cases, comparing their frequencies in the suicide and accident categories, may throw some light on the validity of coroners' present methods of classifying and provide evidence about the limits of error of under-estimation of the suicide rate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 124 , Issue 583 , June 1974 , pp. 526 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Barraclough, B. (1972) Are the Scottish and English suicide rates really different? British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 267—73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
2 Barraclough, B. (1970) The effect that coroners have on the suicide rate and the open verdict rate, in Psychiatric Epidemiology (eds. Hare, E. H., Wing, J. K.). London: O.U.P.Google Scholar
3 Douglas, J. (1967) The Social Meanings of Suicide. Princeton U.P., Princeton N.J.; London: Rout-ledge.Google Scholar
4 Dunnell, K. Gartwright, K. (1972) Medicine Takers, Presenters and Hoarders, p. 84, Routledge, London.Google Scholar
5 General Register Office (1970, 1971, 1972) Poisoning cases in 1968, 1969, 1970. Pharmaceutical Journal, 703, 422, 530.Google Scholar
6 Home Office (1971) Death Certification and Coroners (The Brodrick Report). H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
7 Jervis on Coroners (1957) pp. 86, 181, 229 (ed. Purchase, W.B., Wollaston, H.W.). 9th edition. London: Sweet and Maxwell.Google Scholar
8 Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Personal communication.Google Scholar
9 Registrar Generals Statistical Review of England and Wales for 1970, Part 1, Medical Tables, Tables 18A. London: H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
10 The Times, 31.1.67, re D.Google Scholar
11 World Health Organization (1969) International Classification of Diseases, Volume 2. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.