Filicide in Austria and Finland - A register-based study on all filicide cases in Austria and Finland 1995-2005

Abstract

BackgroundFilicide is the tragic crime of murdering one's own child. Previous research has found that the offending parents are commonly depressed and that suicide is often associated as an actual act or an intention. Yet, filicide is an underreported crime and previous studies have been strained with methodological problems. No comprehensive international studies on filicide have been presented in the literature until now.MethodsThis was a descriptive, comprehensive, register-based study of all filicides in Austria and Finland during 1995-2005. Filicide-suicide cases were also included.ResultsMost of the perpetrators were the biological mothers; in Austria 72%, in Finland 52%. Suicide followed filicide either as an attempt or a fulfilled act in 32% and 54% of the cases in Austria and Finland, respectively. Psychotic mood disorders were diagnosed for 10% of the living perpetrators in Austria, and 12% in Finland. Non-psychotic depression was diagnosed in 9% of surviving perpetrators in Austria, 35% in Finland.ConclusionThe data from the two countries demonstrated that filicide is such a multifaceted and rare phenomenon that national data from individual countries seldom offer sufficient scope for its thorough study. Further analyses are needed to produce a complete picture of filicide.

Dying with parents: an extreme form of child abuse

“…Conversely, suffocation or shooting was often used in Finland or Austria. [8] Unlike many cities that guns and pistols are readily available, there has been no gunshot injury involving childhood accidents in Hong Kong. [11] A small retrospective US study showed a different pattern in that twice as many fathers as mothers committed fi licide-suicide during the study period, and older children were more often victims than infants.…”

“…Our epidemiologic data are comparable with those of Finland and Austria in some aspects, namely that the victims were predominantly boys, median age of the victims was less than 5 years, more perpetrators were mothers, the median age of perpetrators was 36 years, and psychiatric risk factors may be present among the perpetrators. [8,10] Nevertheless, there were some dissimilarities in that all perpetrators and nearly all victims died, and jumping from heights is the predominant mode of suicide and filicide. Charcoal burning is a relatively popular mode of suicide in Hong Kong.…”

“…Filicide, an extreme form of child abuse, is the tragic crime of murdering one's own child. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] There were five cases that hit head news in the fi rst 5 months of 2010 in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is full of high-rise buildings and jumping off buildings is a relatively common mode of suicide.…”

Potential predictors in neonaticide: the impact of the circumstances of pregnancy

“…Out of 124 filicides, 28 (23 %) were classified as neonaticide. Although the rate of filicide was similar in both countries (Austria 5.2 and Finland 5.9 per 100,000 inhabitants aged younger than 18) (Putkonen et al 2009), there was a marked difference in the neonaticide rate (23 cases in Austria and 5 cases in Finland; 2.59 and 0.78 per 100,000 live births, respectively) (Statistic Austria 2009a, b;Statistic Finland 2011a, b).…”

“…The interrater coefficients were sound according to the guidelines provided by Cicchetti (1994), and we used the statistical package SPSS 15.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) for all data analyses. The data as well as the health service and forensic systems in Austria and Finland were similar enough to allow comparative analysis (Putkonen et al 2009). …”