Citation

Eliason S. J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry Law 2010; 38(1): 146-147.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Publisher American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Reply by the current author to the comments made by Matthew Large, Glen Smith & Olav Nielssen (see record 2010-07385-031) on the original article (see record 2009-17452-012). The authors have brought forth several important concerns on the subject of homicide-suicide. They assert that the rate of homicide-suicide is not fixed and that the rate can be related to the rate of homicide alone. They presented compelling evidence that the homicide-suicide rate may be related to the rate of homicide alone in areas with higher homicide rates such as the United States. There is also some discrepancy in the definition of murder-suicide and the amount of time between the two events for them to qualify as a murder-suicide. In my review, murder-suicide was defined as a homicide that was followed by a suicide within one week, but the authors defined it as any homicide followed by a suicide before conviction. As the authors point out in their letter and recently published paper, there are very few publications and studies on murder-suicide. Their recent publication is a helpful addition to the literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)