Psychological Autopsy Essay

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THE ROLES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSY IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF SUICIDE CASES IN BAGUIO CITY

By
LIRIO, ALEXANDRA CLAIRE C.
PASCUA, JEMAICA G.
TALTALA, AIMEE B.
TIMOTEO, SHANBERLANE T.

UNIVERSITY OF BAGUIO
THE ROLES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSY IN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF SUICIDE CASES
CHAPTER 1
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Shneidman, in collaboration with Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center and the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office, coined the term Psychological Autopsy to refer to a procedure used to classify equivocal deaths. An equivocal death is a death in which it is not immediately clear whether a person committed suicide or not (e.g., drug-ingestion deaths, single car accident deaths). It is essentially a mental state examination of the deceased.
Approximately 20% of cases presented to a medical examiner has unclear mode of death. A …show more content…

Specifically, to answer the following questions:
1. What is Psychological Autopsy?
2. How is Psychological Autopsy conducted?
3. When it will be needed to be conducted?
4. How does psychological autopsy help in conducting the investigation?
IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY This study on the roles of psychological autopsy to the criminal investigation of suicide cases is expected to bring about important information that would be of significance to the survivor of attempted suicide cases, families and community members, students, and other researchers, and specially to the researchers itself. Specifically, the findings of this study bear significance to the following:
• Determination of the cause of suicide
• Coming up to a rehabilitation program for suicide survivors
• Conducting seminars on giving community members knowledge on how to get through extreme emotions like trauma, stress and depression that will lead to suicide
• Understanding suicide survivors why they have come up in attempting suicide
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE

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