TY - JOUR PY - 2021// TI - COVID-19 and the risk of homicide-suicide among older adults: identify patients who are at risk, and implement measures to protect them JO - Current psychiatry A1 - Ghossoub, Elias A1 - Wakim, Mary-Lee T. A1 - Khoury, Rita SP - 14 EP - 18 VL - 20 IS - 2 N2 - On March 25, 2020, in Cambridge, United Kingdom, a 71-year-old man stabbed his 71-year-old wife before suffocating himself to death. The couple was reportedly anxious about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown measures and were on the verge of running out of food and medicine. (1) One week later, in Chicago, Illinois, a 54-year-old man shot and killed his female partner, age 54, before killing himself. The couple was tested for COVID-19 2 days earlier and the man believed they had contracted the virus; however, the test results for both of them had come back negative. (2) Intimate partner homicide-suicide is the most dramatic domestic abuse outcome. (3) Homicide-suicide is defined as "homicide committed by a person who subsequently commits suicide within one week of the homicide. In most cases the subsequent suicide occurs within a 24-hour period." (4) Approximately one-quarter of all homicide-suicides are committed by persons age [greater than or equal to]55 years. (5-6) We believe that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the risk of homicide-suicide among older adults may be increased due to several factors, including... To better characterize the perpetrators of older adult homicide-suicide, we conducted a literature search of relevant terms. We identified 9 original research publications that examined homicide-suicide in older adults...
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1537-8276 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.12788/cp.0090 ID - ref1 ER -