A semistructured interview for psychologycal autopsy: an inter-rater reliability study.

This study developed and evaluated the inter-rater reliability of a semistructured interview for psychological autopsy (SIPA). The SIPA is composed of 69 items that are distributed into four modules (precipitators and stressors, motivation, lethality, intentionality). The interviews of 42 subjects, related to 21 cases of suicide, were audiotaped and then transcribed and evaluated by the interviewer, and also evaluated by a research assistant and two referees who all acted independently. The SIPA was able to provide information that demonstrated a high degree of concordance (kappa) among the raters. The results of this study demonstrate that the SIPA is a very reliable instrument for psychological autopsy in cases of suicide.