Bret S Palmer1, Olive Bennewith1, Sue Simkin2, Jayne Cooper3, Keith Hawton2, Nav Kapur3, David Gunnell1. 1. School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 2PS, UK. 2. Centre for Suicide Research, University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK. 3. Centre for Suicide Prevention, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: To investigate the variation between coroners in the verdicts given to deaths thought by researchers to be probable suicides and analyse factors associated with the coroners' verdict. METHODS: Data were collected from 12 English coroner districts on all deaths in 2005 given a suicide, open, accidental or narrative verdict where suicide was considered a possibility. The data were reviewed by three experienced suicide researchers. Regression models were used to investigate factors associated with the coroners' verdict. RESULTS: The researchers classified 593 deaths as suicide, of which 385 (65.4%) received a suicide verdict from the coroner. There was marked variation between coroner districts in the verdicts they gave. The suicide method was associated strongly with the coroners' verdict; deaths from poisoning and drowning were the least likely to be given suicide verdicts. The other factors strongly associated with a coroner's verdict of suicide were: whether a note was left, age over 60 years and being married or widowed compared with being single. CONCLUSION: Coroners vary considerably in the verdicts they give to individuals who probably died by suicide. This may compromise the usefulness of suicide statistics for assessing area differences in rates for public health surveillance.
BACKGROUND: To investigate the variation between coroners in the verdicts given to deaths thought by researchers to be probable suicides and analyse factors associated with the coroners' verdict. METHODS: Data were collected from 12 English coroner districts on all deaths in 2005 given a suicide, open, accidental or narrative verdict where suicide was considered a possibility. The data were reviewed by three experienced suicide researchers. Regression models were used to investigate factors associated with the coroners' verdict. RESULTS: The researchers classified 593 deaths as suicide, of which 385 (65.4%) received a suicide verdict from the coroner. There was marked variation between coroner districts in the verdicts they gave. The suicide method was associated strongly with the coroners' verdict; deaths from poisoning and drowning were the least likely to be given suicide verdicts. The other factors strongly associated with a coroner's verdict of suicide were: whether a note was left, age over 60 years and being married or widowed compared with being single. CONCLUSION: Coroners vary considerably in the verdicts they give to individuals who probably died by suicide. This may compromise the usefulness of suicide statistics for assessing area differences in rates for public health surveillance.
Authors: Jayne Cooper; Navneet Kapur; Roger Webb; Martin Lawlor; Else Guthrie; Kevin Mackway-Jones; Louis Appleby Journal: Am J Psychiatry Date: 2005-02 Impact factor: 18.112
Authors: D Gunnell; O Bennewith; S Simkin; J Cooper; E Klineberg; C Rodway; L Sutton; S Steeg; C Wells; K Hawton; N Kapur Journal: Psychol Med Date: 2012-11-01 Impact factor: 7.723
Authors: Rafael Lozano; Mohsen Naghavi; Kyle Foreman; Stephen Lim; Kenji Shibuya; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Timothy Adair; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Suzanne Barker-Collo; David H Bartels; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Kavi Bhalla; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Soufiane Boufous; Chiara Bucello; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Jonathan Carapetis; Honglei Chen; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Nabila Dahodwala; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Majid Ezzati; Valery Feigin; Abraham D Flaxman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Richard Franklin; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Yara A Halasa; Diana Haring; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Bruno Hoen; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Summer Lockett Ohno; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Leslie Mallinger; Lyn March; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; John McGrath; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Catherine Michaud; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Charles Mock; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Ali A Mokdad; Andrew Moran; Kim Mulholland; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Kiumarss Nasseri; Paul Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; David Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; C Arden Pope; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Murugesan Raju; Dharani Ranganathan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Felipe Rodriguez De León; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Joshua A Salomon; Uchechukwu Sampson; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; Maria Segui-Gomez; Donald S Shepard; David Singh; Jessica Singleton; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Andrew Steer; Jennifer A Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; Imad M Tleyjeh; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Eduardo A Undurraga; N Venketasubramanian; Lakshmi Vijayakumar; Theo Vos; Gregory R Wagner; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; James D Wilkinson; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Paul Yip; Azadeh Zabetian; Zhi-Jie Zheng; Alan D Lopez; Christopher J L Murray; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321
Authors: Ian R H Rockett; Gordon S Smith; Eric D Caine; Nestor D Kapusta; Randy L Hanzlick; G Luke Larkin; Charles P E Naylor; Kurt B Nolte; Ted R Miller; Sandra L Putnam; Diego De Leo; John Kleinig; Steven Stack; Knox H Todd; David W Fraser Journal: Am J Public Health Date: 2014-10-16 Impact factor: 9.308
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