Psychological Autopsy
Definition
A retrospective investigation of a deceased person's psychological state in the period before death, used to help differentiate suicide, homicide, accident and natural manner of death.
- Purpose
- Differentiate suicide, homicide, accident, natural manner of death
- Method
- Retrospective interviews and records review
- Sources used
- Medical and psychiatric records, interviews with family and associates
Common questions
Does a psychological autopsy determine the medical cause of death?+
No. Cause of death is established through medical and pathological examination; the psychological autopsy addresses manner and intent by reconstructing the decedent's mental state and circumstances in the period before death.
What are the main limitations of this technique?+
It relies on retrospective, secondhand accounts that are subject to memory bias, informant motivation, and hindsight bias, so its findings are treated as corroborative rather than independently conclusive evidence of manner of death.
Related terms
- Collateral Source
- Any non-deceased source feeding the reconstruction: family, treating clinician, employer, financial records, diary, digital footprint.
- Equivocal Death
- A death in which the cause is established but the manner is unclear. The category that psychological autopsy was originally designed to...
- Manner of Death
- The circumstantial classification of a death using the NAME five-category scheme (natural, accident, suicide, homicide, undetermined), or the jurisdiction-specific equivalent, recorded separately...
- NIMHANS Protocol
- The structured psychological-autopsy interview and source-review framework developed at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru. The Indian de-facto standard.
- Suicide Note
- A written or recorded communication left by the deceased explaining or referring to the act. Present in a minority of Indian suicides;...