Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford, UK.
Crisis. 2012;33(4):230-8. doi: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000139.
As in several other countries, inquiries after a suspected suicide in England and Wales now routinely seek to include both medico-legal and family perspectives on the character and motivations of the person who died. Little research attention, however, has been paid to the reactions of the bereaved to the coroner's verdict.
To explore people's accounts of their acceptance or resistance to the verdict and the resources they draw upon in explaining their perspectives, especially when these contraindicate the coroner's verdict.
Indepth interviews with 40 people who had been bereaved by suicide, followed by qualitative analysis, combining thematic analysis with constant comparison.
Bereaved relatives who saw the suicide verdict as a correct reflection of events drew on the conventional constructions of suicide used by coroners, and (thus) the media. Relatives who resisted a suicide verdict referred to their privileged knowledge and beliefs about the person who had died, producing claims about their character, relationships, and motivations which often contradicted the conventional cues, such as a diagnosis of mental illness, previous attempts at suicide, method used, and suicide notes. For some relatives an open verdict was acceptable, even desirable, while for others it left too much uncertainty.
The findings have implications for coroner's practice, understanding varied responses of people bereaved by suicide, and for future research.
与其他几个国家一样，在英国和威尔士，对疑似自杀事件的调查现在通常都试图同时从医学法律和家庭角度来了解死者的性格和动机。然而，对于死者亲属对验尸官裁决的反应，关注甚少。
探讨人们对裁决的接受或抵制的原因，以及他们用来解释自己观点的资源，尤其是当这些观点与验尸官的裁决相矛盾时。
对 40 名因自杀而失去亲人的人进行深入访谈，然后进行定性分析，将主题分析与不断比较相结合。
将自杀裁决视为对事件的正确反映的死者亲属，借鉴了验尸官和（因此）媒体使用的传统自杀构建。抵制自杀裁决的亲属则提到了他们对死者的特权知识和信仰，提出了关于他们的性格、人际关系和动机的说法，这些说法往往与传统线索相矛盾，例如精神疾病的诊断、以前的自杀企图、使用的方法和自杀遗言。对一些亲属来说，开放性裁决是可以接受的，甚至是可取的，而对另一些亲属来说，这留下了太多的不确定性。
这些发现对验尸官的做法、理解自杀死亡者亲属的不同反应以及未来的研究都有影响。
