Suicide registration in eight European countries: A qualitative analysis of procedures and practices

Within and Inter-Institutional Differences Between Death Certifiers on Autopsy Conclusions

“…Although our overall results are coherent with the extant literature with regard to decedents' and incidents' characteristics and their influence on manner of death classification, our analyses provide innovative findings, first by affirming the importance of cultural definitions and related institutional structures on medico-legal practices and thus mortality statistics (Douglas, 1967;Neuilly, 2011;Rockett, 2010;Varnik et al, 2010), and second, by offering a new avenue to research pertaining to the impact of individual medico-legal practitioners' characteristics on manner of death decision making, thus furthering Goodin and Hanzlick's (1997) cornerstone results . With regard to cultural and institutional factors, further analyses will have to (a) systematize comparative efforts by replicating such studies in various countries, (b) integrate quantitative analyses with in-depth qualitative data, and (c) establish hierarchical influences of culture and institutional structure beyond the country level, both on a more local and larger scale.…”

Validity of suicide statistics in Europe in relation to undetermined deaths: developing the 2-20 benchmark

“…The quality of injury mortality statistics depends on various country-specific circumstances such as: (1) routines for registering suicides and other external causes of deaths;15 25 29 (2) the economic situation, which determines the resources available for medical and legal inquest into causes of death (autopsy, forensic autopsy, police/prosecutor investigation);15–17 (3) the strictness of and adherence to regulations concerning statistical data about causes of death;12 13 (4) varying proportions of suicide methods (hanging and jumping, which are usually easy to diagnose as suicides, versus drowning, using street drugs, or traffic accidents, in which the intent is more difficult to determine);30 (5) cultural issues (stigma and denial at the family level);31 (6) financial implications for relatives, depending on life insurance regulations and practices;32 33 (7) the sociopolitical situation, which may bring forth wishes of the government to suppress one diagnosis of death at the expense of another 16 17…”

“…The rate ratio is not a new measurement as it has been used before 12 15 18 27. Moreover, this indicator is easy to understand because the quantity of UD is primarily associated with the validity of suicide statistics.…”

Towards a Greater Understanding of Suicidal Behaviour and Its Prevention

“…Thus, as Indigenous Australians are treated differently within the coronial system and the coroners anticipate a higher suicide rate among them, the coroners are a part of the mechanism of its production. The quality of suicide determination and registrations and its impact on official suicide statistics will remain an important subject in suicide research [14]. …”