Legal and administrative influences on the English suicide rate since 1900
- 1 May 1980
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Psychological Medicine
- Vol. 10 (3) , 407-418
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291700047280
Abstract
SYNOPSIS We examined the hypothesis that changes in the suicide rate of England and Wales since 1900 are an artefact of changes in the process of classifying violent deaths. Four potential sources of artefact were considered: (1) the reliability of the procedure for investigating suspected suicides; (2) coding by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys; (3) changes in the law; (4) High Court decisions on suicide. None of these can explain the large observed fluctuations in the suicide rate.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Undetermined Deaths—Suicide or Accident?The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1978