Victim characteristics in fatal home accidents: Alcohol, mental disorder, and suicidal intent in officially registered accidents in the home

Analysis was made of the 955 fatal home accidents in Sweden in 1966, of which falls accounted for more than half and poisoning for a fifth. Besides confirming the relationships already known to exist between age and sex and specific types of accidents, the authors found that alcohol intoxication and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta socio-medica Scandinavica 1969-01, Vol.1 (3), p.145-164
Main Authors: Berfenstam, Ragnar, Lagerberg, Dagmar, Smedby, Björn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accident Prevention
Accidents, Home
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Alcohol Drinking
Alcoholic Intoxication - epidemiology
Alcoholism - epidemiology
Asphyxia - epidemiology
Child
Child, Preschool
Death Certificates
Female
Fires
Humans
Infant
Male
Medical Records
Mental Disorders - epidemiology
Middle Aged
Mortality
Poisoning - epidemiology
Population Surveillance
Retrospective Studies
Sex Factors
Smoking
Suicide
Sweden
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Summary:Analysis was made of the 955 fatal home accidents in Sweden in 1966, of which falls accounted for more than half and poisoning for a fifth. Besides confirming the relationships already known to exist between age and sex and specific types of accidents, the authors found that alcohol intoxication and mental ill-health were other important predisposing factors among adults. Alcohol was implicated in every second case of poisoning and suffocation, and in every fourth fire accident, but in only 5 % of the fatal falls. Two out of three victims of poisoning had a history of mental disorder, every second victim of suffocation and every third victim of fire accidents. The authors conclude that several of the deaths officially registered as accidental were in fact suicides, probably as many as a third of the fatal poisonings. They discuss problems of classification and prevention in view of their observations on victim characteristics.
ISSN:0044-6041