Citation

McGovern C, Cusack DA. J. Clin. Forensic Med. 2004; 11(6): 289-298.

Affiliation

Division of Legal Medicine, Department of Forensic Medicine, University College Dublin, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jcfm.2004.04.015

PMID

15522637

Abstract

This paper focuses on 109 cases of suicide that occurred in Kildare from 1995 to 2002. These statistics were obtained by examining the records of the Kildare County Coroner. There is no central national location for the records of the 48 coroner jurisdictions in Ireland and all coroners are required by law to retain the files on each inquest indefinitely. However, the actual record of verdict given at inquest is not the one used for determining the suicide rate in the country. This is achieved by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Form 104, which asks for the investigating police officer to give his or her opinion as to the cause of death. This results in discrepancies between what the coroner records and what the official suicide rate is presumed to be. These figures are further influenced by some coroners choosing to return a verdict "death in accordance with the medical evidence" as opposed to a verdict of suicide. The files were also examined to find the high-risk groups or those groups which have a tendency towards suicide. Over 84% of suicides were male and 32 men were between the ages of 20 and 30. It is suggested that the standardisation of recording verdicts of suicide be implemented as soon as possible as the current situation leads to variances between coroner's records and those kept by the CSO.