Psychological Autopsy Studies as Diagnostic Tools: Are They Methodologically Flawed?

Death Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 7, 2012, Pages 605-626

  Hjelmeland, Heidi ^a,b   Dieserud, Gudrun ^b   Dyregrov, Kari ^b,c   Knizek, Birthe L ^a   Leenaars, Antoon A ^b,d  

^a NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY   (Norway)

^b NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC HEALTH   (Norway)

^c Center for Crisis Psychology   (Norway)

^d NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HUMAN; MENTAL DISEASE; METHODOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; STANDARD; SUICIDE;

HUMANS; MENTAL DISORDERS; PSYCHOPATHOLOGY; SUICIDE;

EID: 84862299898     PISSN: 07481187     EISSN: 10917683     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2011.584015     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Apter, A., Bleich, A., King, R. A., Kron, S., Fluch, A., Kotler, M., & Cohen, D. J. (1993). Death without warning? A clinical post-mortem study of suicide in 43 Israeli adolescent males. Archives of General Psychiatry, 50, 138-142.
2. Barraclough, B., Bunch, J., Nelson, B., & Sainsbury, P. (1974). A hundred cases of suicide: Clinical aspects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 355-373.
3. Berman, A. (2006). The other 10 percent. Newslink, 33 (3), 3.
4. Bertolote, J. M., Fleischman, A., De Leo, D., & Wasserman, D. (2003). Suicide and mental disorders: Do we know enough. British Journal of Psychiatry, 183, 382-383.
5. Bertolote, J. M., Fleischman, A., De Leo, D., & Wasserman, D. (2004). Psychiatric diagnoses and suicide: Revisiting the evidence. Crisis, 25, 147-155.
6. Beskow, J., Runeson, B., & Åsgård, U. (1990). Psychological autopsies: Methods and ethics. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 20, 307-323.
7. Bostwick, J. M., & Pankratz, V. S. (2000). Affective disorders and suicide: A re-examination. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 1925-1932.
8. Brent, D. A., Johnson, B. A., Perper, J., Conolly, J., Bridge, J., Bartle, S., & Rather, C. (1994). Personality disorder, personality traits, impulsive violence, and completed suicide in adolescents. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 33, 1080-1086.
9. Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Allman, C. J., Moritz, G. M., Wartella, M. E., & Zelenak, J. P. (1991). The presence and accessibility of firearms in the homes of adolescent suicides. JAMA, 266, 2989-2995.
10. Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Moritz, G., Allman, C., Friend, A., et al. (1993). Psychiatric risk factors for adolescent suicide: A case-control study. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 32, 521-529.
11. Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Moritz, G., Allman, C. J., Roth, C., Schweers, J., & Balach, L. (1993). The validity of diagnoses obtained through the psychological autopsy procedure in adolescent suicide victims: Use of family history. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 87, 118-122.
12. Brent, D. A., Perper, J. A., Moritz, G., Baugher, M., Schweers, J., & Roth, C. (1994). Suicide in affectively ill adolescents: A case-control study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 21, 193-202.
13. Cavanagh, J. T. O., Carson, A. J., Sharpe, M., & Lawrie, S. M. (2003). Psychological autopsy studies of suicide: a systematic review. Psychological Medicine, 33, 395-405.
14. Chambers, W. J., Puig-Antich, J., Hirsch, M., Paez, P., Ambrosini, P. J., & Tabrizi, M. A. (1985). The assessment of affective disorders in children and adolescents by semi-structured interview: Test-retest reliability of the schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia for school-aged children, present episode version. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 696-702.
15. Chan, K. P. M., Hung, S. F., & Yip, P. S. F. (2001). Suicide in response to changing societies. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 10, 777-795.
16. Clark, D. C., & Horton-Deutch, S. L. (1992). Assessment in absentia: The value of the psychological autopsy method for studying antecedents of suicide and predicting future suicides. In R. W. Maris, A. L. Berman, J. T. Maltsberger, & R. I. Yufit (Eds.), Assessment and prediction of suicide (pp. 144-182). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
17. Conwell, Y., Lyness, J. M., Duberstein, P., Cox, C., Seidlitz, L., Digiorgio, A., & Caine, E. D. (2000). Completed suicide among older patients in primary care practices: A controlled study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 48, 23-29.
18. Endicott, J., & Spitzer, R. L. (1978). A diagnostic interview: The schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 837-844.
19. Evans, E., Hawton, K., & Rogham, K. (2004). Factors associated with suicidal phenomena in adolescents: A systematic review of population-based studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 957-979.
20. First, M. B., Spitzer, R. L., Gibbon, M., & Williams, J. B. W. (1995). Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders. New York, NY: Biometrics Research Department.
21. First, M. B., Spitzer, R. L., Gibbon, M., Williams, J. B. W., & Benjamin, L. (1994). Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis II personality disorders. New York, NY: Biometrics Research Department.
22. Garber, J., Van Slyke, D. A., & Walker, L. S. (1998). Concordance between mothers' and children's reports of somatic and emotional symptoms in patients with recurrent abdominal pain or emotional disorders. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 26, 381-391.
23. Gunderson, J. G., & Phillips, K. A. (1991). A current view of the interface between borderline personality disorder and depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 967-975.
24. Gustafsson, L., & Jacobsson, L. (2000). On mental disorder and somatic disease in suicide: A psychological autopsy study of 100 suicides in northern Sweden. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 54, 383-395.
25. Hamer, D. (2002). Rethinking behaviour genetics. Science, 298, 71-72.
26. Hawton, K. (1982). How patients and psychiatrists account for overdoses. In E. Shepherd & J. P. Watson (Eds.), Personal meanings (pp. 103-114). New York, NY: Wiley.
27. Hawton, K., Appleby, L., Platt, S., Foster, T., Cooper, J., Malmberg, A., & Simkin, S. (1998). The psychological autopsy approach to studying suicide: A review of methodological issues. Journal of Affective Disorder, 50, 269-276.
28. Henriksson, M. M., Aro, H. M., Marttunen, M. J., Heikkinen, M. E., Isometsä, E. T., Kuoppasalmi, K. I., & Lönnqvist, J. K. (1993). Mental disorders and comorbidity in suicide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 935-940.
29. Isacsson, G., & Rich, C. L. (2003). Getting closer to suicide prevention. British Journal of Psychiatry, 182, 455-459.
30. Joiner, T. E., Sachs-Ericsson, N. J., Wingate, L. R., Brown, J. S., Anestis, M. D., & Selby, E. A. (2007). Childhood physical and sexual abuse and lifetime number of suicide attempts: A persistent and theoretically important relationship. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, 539-547.
31. Kelly, T. M., & Mann, J. J. (1996). Validity of DSM-III-R diagnosis by psychological autopsy: A comparison with clinician ante-mortem diagnosis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 94, 337-343.
32. Klonsky, E. D., Oltmanns, T. F., & Turheimer, E. (2002). Informant-reports of personality disorder: Relation to self-reports and future research directions. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 9, 300-311.
33. Kutcher, S. P., Marton, P., & Korenblum, M. (1990). Adolescent bipolar illness and personality disorder. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 355-358.
34. Martin, G., Bergen, H. A., Richardson, A. S., Roeger, L., & Allison, S. (2004). Sexual abuse and suicidality: Gender differences in a large community sample of adolescents. Child Abuse & Neglect, 28, 491-503.
35. Modestin, J., & Puhan, A. (2000). Comparison of assessment of personality disorder by patients and informants. Psychopathology, 33, 265-270.
36. Moradi, A. R., Taghavi, R., Neshat-Doost, H. T., Yule, W., & Dalgleish, T. (2000). Memory bias for emotional information in children and adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder: a preliminary study. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 14, 521-534.
37. Mortensen, P. B., Agerbo, E., Erikson, T., Qin, P., & Westergaard-Nielsen, N. (2000). Psychiatric illness and risk factors for suicide in Denmark. The Lancet, 355, 9-12.
38. Oates, K. R. (2004). Sexual abuse and suicidal behaviour. Child Abuse & Neglect, 28, 487-489.
39. Orvaschel, H., Puig-Antich, P., Chambers, W., Tabrizi, M. A., & Johnson, R. (1982). Retrospective assessment of prepubertal major depression with the Kiddie-SADS-E. Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 21, 392-397.
40. Palacio, C., Garcia, J., Diago, J., Zapata, C., Lopez, G., Ortiz, J., & Lopez, M. (2007). Identification of suicide risk factors in Medellin, Colombia: A case-control study of psychological autopsy in a developing country. Archives of Suicide Research, 11, 297-308.
41. Phillips, M. R., Shen, Q., Liu, X., Pritzker, S., Streiner, D., Conner, K., & Yang, G. (2007). Assessing depressive symptoms in persons who die of suicide in mainland China. Journal of Affective Disorders, 98, 73-82.
42. Phillips, M. R., Yang, G., Zhang, Y., Wang, L., Ji, H., & Zhou, M. (2002). Risk factors for suicide in China:Aa national case-control psychological autopsy study. The Lancet, 360, 1728-1736.
43. Portzky, G., Audenhart, K., & Van Heeringen, K. (2005). Suicide among adolescents. A psychological autopsy study of psychiatric, psychosocial and personality-related risk factors. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40, 922-930.
44. Pouliot, L., & De Leo, D. (2006). Critical issues in psychological autopsy studies. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 36, 491-510.
45. Rao, A. V., Mahendran, N., Gopalakrishnan, C., Reddy, T. K., Prabhakar, E. R., et al. (1989). One hundred female burn cases: A study in suicidology. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 7, 330-333.
46. Robins, E., & Guze, S. B. (1970). Establishment of diagnostic validity in psychiatric illness: Its application to schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 983-987.
47. Runeson, B. (1989). Mental disorder in youth suicide. DSM-III-R Axes I and II. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 79, 490-497.
48. Runeson, B., & Åsberg, M. (2003). Family history of suicide among suicide victims. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 1525-1526.
49. Runeson, B., & Beskow, J. (1991). Borderline personality disorder in young Swedish suicides. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 179, 153-156.
50. Schneider, B., Maurer, K., Sargk, D., Heiskal, H., Weber, B., et al. (2004). Concordance of DSM-IV Axis I and II diagnoses by personal and informant's interview. Psychiatry Research, 127, 121-136.
51. Shaffer, D., Gould, M. S., Fisher, P., Trautman, P., Moreau, D., Kleinman, M., & Flory, M. (1996). Psychiatric diagnosis in child and adolescent suicide. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 339-348.
52. Sheehan, D. V., Lecrubier, Y., Sheehan, K. H., Amorim, P., Janavs, J., et al. (1992). The Mini international neuropsychiatric interview (M.I.N.I.): The development and validation of a structured diagnostic interview for DSM-IV and ICD-10. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 20 (SUPPL.), 34-57.
53. Shneidman, E. (1981). The psychological autopsy. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 11, 325-340.
54. Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W., Gibbon, M., & First, M. B. (1992). The structured clinical interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) I: History, rationale, and description. Archives of General Psychiatry, 49, 624-629.
55. Thompson, R., Dubowitz, H., English, D. J., Nooner, K. B., Wike, T., et al. (2006). Parents' and teachers' concordance with children's self-ratings of suicidality: Findings from a high-risk sample. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 36, 167-181.
56. Toomela, A. (2007). Culture of science: Strange history of the methodological thinking in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41, 6-20.
57. Vijayakumar, L., John, S., Pirkis, P., & Whiteford, H. (2005). Suicide in developing countries: 2. Risk factors. Crisis, 26, 112-119.
58. nd). London, UK: Routledge.
59. Yang, G.-H., Phillips, M. R., Zhou, M. G., Wang, L.-J., Zhang, Y.-P., & Xu, D. (2005). Understanding the unique characteristics of suicide in China: National psychological autopsy study. Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, 18, 379-389.
60. Zhang, J., Conwell, Y., Zhou, L., & Jiang, C. (2004). Culture, risk factors and suicide in rural China: A psychological autopsy case control study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 110, 430-437.
61. Zonda, T. (2005). Depression and suicidal behaviour. Crisis, 26, 34-35.