Citation

Conner KR, Beautrais AL, Brent DA, Conwell Y, Phillips MR, Schneider B. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 2012; 42(1): 86-103.

Affiliation

Kenneth R. Conner, Yeates Conwell, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY, USA; Kenneth R. Conner, VA VISN 2 Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention, Canandaigua, NY, USA; Annette L. Beautrais, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; David A. Brent, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, PA, and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Michael R. Phillips, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and WHO Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention, Beijing Hua Long Guan Hospital, Beijing, China; Barbara Schneider, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1943-278X.2011.00073.x

PMID

22288728

Abstract

The psychological autopsy (PA) is a systematic method of assessing the psychological and contextual circumstances preceding suicide. The method requires interviews with one or more proxy respondents (i.e., informants) of suicide decedents. Procedural challenges that need to be addressed to conduct PA interviews are described in this article and recommendations for meeting these challenges in future PA investigations are made. Procedures addressed include determining the timing of PA interviews after suicide, designing the structure and flow of interviews, selection of proxy respondents, integrating interview data with information gathered from records, and selecting and training interviewers. This methodological article is the second in a two-part series-the first article focused on interview content.

Language: en