Citation

Salem A, Dragoteanu C, Marinescu M, Onicas C. Rom. J. Leg. Med. 2009; 17(3): 199-204.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Romanian Legal Medicine Society)

DOI

10.4323/rjlm.2009.199

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide is an increasing public health problem all around the globe, because of the loss of lives with devastating effects on those left behind. The literature review shows that there are a lot of risk factors associated with suicide, but the psychiatric pathology or psychiatric imbalance at a certain critical moment in the individual's life seems to play a major role. This article presents four suicide cases autopsied at the National Institute of Legal Medicine - Bucharest in which the common characteristic is the atypical manner and method of commiting suicide: two young men jumping from a high building after chaining themselves together, a self poisoning in a woman by an improvised intravenous line and a man with self inflicted thoracic perforating wound using a mechanical drill. The risk factors associated with these suicides, the preexisting or presumed psychiatric pathology, as well as drug abuse association are reviewed. © 2009 Romanian Society of Legal Medicine.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; suicide; female; male; case report; cause of death; drug abuse; risk factor; Drug abuse; article; mental disease; automutilation; self poisoning; jumping; thorax injury; penetrating trauma; Suicide method; drill; Atypical suicide; Psychiatric imbalance