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The Next Generation of Psychological Autopsy Studies
Author(s) -
Conner Kenneth R.,
Beautrais Annette L.,
Brent David A.,
Conwell Yeates,
Phillips Michael R.,
Schneider Barbara
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1943-278x.2011.00073.x
Subject(s) - proxy (statistics) , psychology , applied psychology , content analysis , medical education , medicine , computer science , sociology , social science , machine learning
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.