Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 21 (Haartmaninkatu 3), Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland.
Forensic Medicine Unit, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, P.O. Box 30 (Mannerheimintie 166), FI-00271, Helsinki, Finland.
Int J Legal Med. 2024 Jan;138(1):277-280. doi: 10.1007/s00414-022-02880-4. Epub 2022 Aug 30.
Both natural and unnatural mortality have seasonal variation. In spite of the established link between season and mortality, it is unclear whether medico-legal autopsies are subject to similar variation. Building on a nationwide dataset from the years 2016-2021, this short report aimed to analyse whether medico-legal autopsies are subject to seasonal variation in Finland. An electronic information system was queried for the monthly numbers of performed autopsies. Monthly and yearly trends were estimated with Kruskal-Wallis test and linear regression. A total of 50,457 medico-legal autopsies were performed during the 6-year study period. There were on average 29 to 47 autopsies per day, with an estimated annual decline of 1.8% (95% confidence interval 0.7-2.9%) over the study period. Monthly and yearly variation in autopsies was mostly minor and irregular; statistically significant differences were only observed between January and September as well as January and November (p < 0.05). As such, there appears to be little seasonal variation in medico-legal autopsies in Finland. A mild declining trend in the number of autopsies was observed. Future studies are invited to explore patterns of seasonality in other medico-legal systems, for example in those with generally lower autopsy rates than in Finland.
自然和非自然死亡率都有季节性变化。尽管季节与死亡率之间已经建立了联系，但尚不清楚法医解剖是否也存在类似的变化。本研究基于 2016 年至 2021 年期间的全国性数据集，旨在分析在芬兰，法医解剖是否存在季节性变化。通过电子信息系统查询每月进行的解剖数量。使用 Kruskal-Wallis 检验和线性回归估计每月和每年的趋势。在 6 年的研究期间共进行了 50457 例法医解剖。平均每天进行 29 至 47 次解剖，研究期间估计每年下降 1.8%（95%置信区间为 0.7-2.9%）。解剖的每月和每年变化大多较小且不规则；仅在 1 月和 9 月以及 1 月和 11 月之间观察到统计学上的显著差异（p<0.05）。因此，芬兰的法医解剖似乎季节性变化很小。观察到解剖数量呈轻微下降趋势。未来的研究被邀请探索其他法医学系统中季节性模式，例如那些比芬兰的解剖率普遍较低的系统。
