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Clinical and social variables which differentiate suicide, open and accident verdicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Solomon Jacobson ,
Christopher Bagley  and
Ann Rehin
Solomon Jacobson
Affiliation:
St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath, Sussex and Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford
Christopher Bagley*
Affiliation:
St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath, Sussex and Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford
Ann Rehin
Affiliation:
St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath, Sussex and Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Christopher Bagley, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford.
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Synopsis

A study has been made of cases coming before the Brighton coroner in the period 1970–2. Fifty cases in which a suicide verdict was recorded were specially studied, and relatives and acquaintances of the deceased were interviewed. The information thus obtained was compared with information available to the coroner in considering his verdict in 83 further cases in which he made a verdict of ‘suicide’. The reliability of thewhich the coroner's decision is based was largely validated. A study was made of variables which differentiated ‘suicide’ from 25 ‘open’ and 33 ‘accident’ cases considered by the same coroner. The prevalence of depression did not differentiate ‘suicide’ and ‘open’ cases, and this finding contradicts suggestions that the association of depression and suicide might be an artefact of the method of arriving at a suicide verdict. A number of other demographic and clinical factors did however significantly vary between ‘suicide’, ‘open’ and ‘accident’ cases.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , August 1976 , pp. 417 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

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