Medicolegal autopsies of violent deaths in northern Norway 1972-1992.
The aim of this paper is to describe the characteristics of medicolegal autopsies of violent deaths in northern Norway over a period of 20 years. On request by the police, 1446 violent deaths were examined--82.6% males and 17.4% females. The mean age was 40.2 years (range 0-98). The most frequent violent manners of death were suicides (24.9%), deaths caused by motor vehicle traffic accidents (18.6%), accidental poisoning (11.5%) and boating incidents (8.4%). Homicides and involuntary manslaughter came to 4.4% and 1.7%, respectively, whereas in 11.4% of cases the manner of death was unknown. The five most frequent causes of death were blunt injury (31.4%), drowning (17.4%), suffocation (11.8%), firearm (11.3%) and poisoning (10.5%). In 3.5% of the cases the cause of death was unknown. The spectrum of the manner of death and the cause of death in a subarctic population is discussed with reference to legislation, practise of request and information given by the police.
Nordrum
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Department of Pathology, University Hospital of Tromsø, Norway. patin@rito.no
Eide
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TJ
Jørgensen
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001344:Autopsy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D016495:Police; D011159:Population Surveillance; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014754:Violence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends*