Citation

Large M, Smith G, Nielssen O. J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry Law 2010; 38(1).

Copyright

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

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Comments on an article by S. Eliason (see record 2009-17452-012). The recent review by the author of 16 studies is a useful addition to the literature. However, our systematic review of the epidemiology of homicide-suicide reached a different conclusion from those of Eliason and two earlier reviews. Instead of finding a relatively fixed rate of homicide-suicide, we found a 100-fold variation between the lowest rate and the highest rate in the 65 samples of homicide-suicide located by using exhaustive search strategies. The earlier reviews also concluded that the rate of homicide-suicide is unrelated to that of other homicides. However, we found a strong association between rates of homicide and homicide-suicide in the United States, which has high rates of both. The presence of wide variations in both the rates of homicides and homicide-suicide committed by the mentally ill demonstrates the need to examine not only illness variables but also the importance of societal factors associated with these tragic events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)