ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 13

The Impact of Psychological Autopsies on Medical Examiners' Determination of Manner of Death
Berman, AL
Doctoral student in clinical psychology and professor of psychology, The American University, DC

Josselson, AR
Chief, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, DC

Jobes, DA
Doctoral student in clinical psychology and professor of psychology, The American University, DC

(Received 29 January 1985; accepted 22 April 1985)

Abstract

This study evaluated the impact of psychological information on medical examiners' determination of manner of death in equivocal cases. Ten cases, a typical and equivocal case for each of five case types (single car, child, autoerotic, psychotic, and Russian roulette death) were evaluated for manner of death by 195 medical examiner subjects. From this sample 95 control subjects received 10 cases made up of physical and circumstantial evidence, while 100 experimental subjects received the same 10 cases expanded with brief psychological autopsies. Psychological information was shown to have a statistically significant impact on subjects' determination (and certainty) of manner of death is equivocal cases and even in some typical cases.

Keywords:
pathology and biology, psychiatry, death, postmortem examinations, psychological autopsy, manner of death, equivocal death, single-car death, childhood death, autoerotic death, psychotic death, Russian roulette death

Paper ID: JFS11870J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS11870J
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