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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
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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 

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