Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T23:09:33.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Undetermined Deaths—Suicide or Accident?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

T. A. Holding  and
B. M. Barraclough
T. A. Holding
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Royal Hobart Hospital, Hobart, Tasmania 7000 (address for reprints); formerly Medical Research Council Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry, University Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh EH10 5HF
B. M. Barraclough
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, West Sussex PO10 4PQ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A consecutive series of 110 undetermined deaths (U.D.) was compared with matched samples of suicides and accidents recorded in the same metropolitan Coroner's District. The hypothesis tested was that U.D. are mostly concealed suicides and will resemble known suicides more closely than accidents. The samples were compared on social and demographic variables, psychiatric and physical illness, evidence of suicide intent, information available to the Coroner and the circumstances of death. The results did not confirm the hypothesis. The study widens the investigation of the mortality of mental disorder from unnatural causes beyond the category of suicide.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 133 , Issue 6 , December 1978 , pp. 542 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1978 

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

Adelstein, A. & Mardon, C. (1975) Suicides 1961–74. Population Trends No. 2. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Bagley, C. & Jacobson, S. (1976) Ecological variation of three types of suicide. Psychological Medicine, 6, 423–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bagley, C., Jacobson, S. & Rehin, A. (1976) Completed suicide: a taxonomic analysis of clinical and social data. Psychological Medicine, 6, 429–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barraclough, B. M. (1970) The effect that coroners have on the suicide rate. Psychiatric Epidemiology, eds. Hare, E. H. and Wing, J. K. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barraclough, B. M. (1972) Are the Scottish and English suicide rates really different? British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 267–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barraclough, B. M. (1973) Differences between national suicide rates. British Journal of Psychiatry, 122, 75–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barraclough, B. M., Bunch, J., Nelson, B. & Sainsbury, P. (1974) A hundred cases of suicide: clinical aspects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 355–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brooke, E. M. & Atkinson, M. (1974) Suicide and attempted suicide. Public Health Paper No. 58. World Health Organization, Geneva.Google Scholar
Curphey, T. J. (1968) Role of the forensic pathologist in the medico-legal certification of modes of death. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 13, 163–76.Google Scholar
Holding, T. A. & Barraclough, B. M. (1975) Psychiatric morbidity in a sample of a London coroner's open verdicts. British Journal of Psychiatry, 127, 133–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holding, T. A. & Barraclough, B. M. (1977) Psychiatric morbidity in a sample of accidents. British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 244–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, S. & Jacobson, D. M. (1972) Suicide in Brighton. British Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 369–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobson, S., Bagley, C. & Rehin, A. (1976) Clinical and social variables which differentiate suicide, open and accident verdicts. Psychological Medicine, 6, 417–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCarthy, P. D. & Walsh, D. (1966) Suicide in Dublin. British Medical Journal, i, 1393–6.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A. E. (1970) Comparing the classification of subjects by two independent judges. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 651–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ovenstone, I. M. K. (1973) A psychiatric approach to the diagnosis of suicide and its effect upon the Edinburgh statistics. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 15–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penttila, A., Tehnu, M. & Virkkumen, M. (1972) Obscure deaths: an analysis of 103 cases in Finland. Forensic Science, 1, 61–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Purchase, W. B. & Wollaston, H. W. (1957) Jervis on the Office and Duties of Coroners. 9th edition. London: Sweet and Maxwell.Google Scholar
Registrar-General's Statistical Reviews for England and Wales 1969 and 1970. Medical Tables. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Robins, E., Murphy, G. E., Wilkinson, R. H., Gassner, S. & Kayes, J. (1959) Some clinical considerations in the prevention of suicide based on a study of 134 successful suicides. American Journal of Public Health, 49, 888–99.Google ScholarPubMed
Thurston, G. (1976) Coronership. Chichester: Barry Rose.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.