OBJECTIVE: As physician-assisted suicide is debated, a need for standardized measurement of desire for death among medically ill individuals has emerged. The authors present preliminary validation data for a new self-report instrument, the Schedule of ... 

Objective: The authors sought to determine the long-term impact of sudden parental death on youths and pathways between youth bereavement and impairment.Methods: Youths (N=216) who lost a parent to suicide, accident, or sudden natural death and nonbereaved ...

Objective: Death by suicide is a highly preventable yet growing worldwide health crisis. To date, there has been a lack of adequately powered genomic studies of suicide, with no sizable suicide death cohorts available for analysis. To address this ...

Objective: Despite dramatic increases in the rate of fatal accidental overdose in recent years, risk factors for this outcome remain poorly understood, particularly in clinical populations. The authors examined the association of psychiatric and substance ...

Objective: The authors sought to determine whether a significant association exists between the use of stimulants and the rare event of sudden unexplained death in children and adolescents. Method: A matched case-control ... 

Death rates during a period of rapid deinstitutionalization of a state mental hospital population showed consistent reductions that were statistically significant in the elderly patient population 65 years and older. These reductions were most marked for ... 

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of books and articles on death and dying. The ambivalence of some writers regarding the value of this proliferation of papers led the author to review and evaluate this literature; he found ... 

Objective: The authors examined the extent to which the genetic and environmental etiology of suicide attempt and suicide death is shared or unique.Methods: The authors used Swedish national registry data for a large cohort of twins, full siblings, ...

The author reviews concepts important to understanding the emotional causes of sudden death, which occurs in the psychological setting of hopelessness, powerlessness, and intense emotions. The cardiovascular system responds to stress in a way that makes ... 

Childhood parental death has frequently been linked with adult mental disorders--mostly depression. The authors found no association with psychiatric diagnosis among 72 inpatients who had experienced the death of a parent when they were children, compared ... 

Cluster analysis of 89 near-death experiences yielded three discrete types of such experiences: transcendental, affective, and cognitive. Demographic variables did not differentiate individuals having these different types of experiences, but cognitive ... 

In response to direct questioning, two dissimilar groups of elderly subjects reported little fear of death or dying. In producing Thematic Apperception Test stories, however, respondents who were well and autonomous used less denial and expressed more ... 

The authors studied retrospectively 78 reports of "near-death experiences using subjects narratives and questionnaires, interviews, and medical records. Prior experiences suggestive of transcendence of death were more common among these subjects than ... 

Sudden cardiac death due to ventricular fibrillation is the leading cause of fatality in the industrially developed world. A considerable body of evidence indicates that the higher nervous system modifies electrical activity of the heart and may trigger ... 

Instruction in dying and death can be profitably included in the psychiatry curriculum. Through the use of this subject as a teaching focus, improved methods of psychosocial care are fostered and psychiatric principles and phenomena involving the patient ... 

Near-death experiences reportedly foster value transformations and decrease suicidal ideation. Eighty-nine survivors of near-death experiences judged values related to material and social success as less important than did 175 control subjects. Decathexis ... 

OBJECTIVE: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have become prominent medical and social issues. This study investigated the prevalence of the desire for death in terminally ill patients, the stability of this desire over time, and its association ... 

A case of sudden unforeseen death in a young, physically well, acutely catatonic patient has been presented. The findings at necropsy were not sufficient to explain either her death or her psychotic behavior. The terminal period was brief, lasting ...