Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T13:12:23.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Influence of Coroners' Officers and Pathologists on Suicide Verdicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Brian Barraclough
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Clinical Psychiatry Unit, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, Sussex PO19 4PQ
Trevor Holding
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh EH10 5HF
Peter Fayers
Affiliation:
M.R.C. Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases Unit, Brompton Hospital, Fulham Road, London SW3 6HP

Summary

Three-hundred-and-thirty cases of unnatural death, leading to 110 open verdicts, 110 verdicts of suicide and 11o of accident, from the Inner West London Coroner's District have been examined to see if particular coroner's officers or pathologists were associated with disproportionate numbers of suicide verdicts. No significant deviations from the expected numbers were found. Coroner's officers probably share common ideas about the features defining suicide, and so do pathologists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

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

Atkinson, J. M. (1971) Societal reactions to suicide; the role of coroners' definitions. In Images of Deviance (ed. Cohen, S.), p 186. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Douglas, J. D. (1970) The Social Meaning of Suicide. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
International Classification of Diseases 1965 (1967) Vol. 1. Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, P. (1973) Suicide: opinions and facts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 66, 579–87.Google ScholarPubMed
Home Office (1971) Report of the Committee on Death Certification and Coroners. Cmnd 4810. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, P. & Barraclough, B. (1968) Differences between suicide rates. Nature, 220, 1252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.