Murder-suicide: a review of the recent literature.
There has been recent widespread media coverage of events that involve murder-suicide. In this paper, the author does an extensive literature review of studies about murder-suicide. The purpose is to determine whether the incidence of murder-suicide is increasing and what its risk factors are. The results of this review show that the incidence of murder-suicide remains at under 0.001%. Risk factors for murder-suicide are based on relationship between perpetrator and victims, history of domestic violence, sex or perpetrator and victim, age of perpetrator, presence of divorce/separation, use of weapon, and history of mental illness. This paper shows that the incidence of murder-suicide is low, stable, and similar to what has been reported in the past. There are, however, some distinct risk factors for murder-suicide including: substance abuse (not as common), mostly male perpetrators, depression (more common), and older male caregivers are at risk.
Eliason
Scott
S
University of California San Francisco, CA, USA. seliason1@gmail.com
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D002423:Cause of Death; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006708:Homicide / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012307:Risk Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D013405:Suicide / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States