Difference between the cognitive and control ability and the responsibility in forensic psychiatry evaluation / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To analyze the difference between the cognitive and control ability and the responsibility in forensic psychiatry evaluation.@*METHODS@#To compare the results of the responsibility evaluation from 2001.1 to 2006.10 (the first period) with that of the cognitive and control ability evaluation from 2006.11 to 2010.10 (the second period). The admissibility opinions on court judgment and evaluation were investigated by return visit. The legal professions' opinions on forensic psychiatric issues from the police office, the procuratorate, the court, and the judiciary were investigated.@*RESULTS@#There was no significant difference of the criminal types between two periods (P > 0.05). There was significant difference of the diagnostic types between two periods (P < 0.05). The proportion of normal range and part loss of the cognitive and control ability in the second period were higher than that in the first period, but the proportion of complete loss of the cognitive and control ability in the second period was lower than that in the first period (P < 0.05). Among the legal professions, 70.5% of them thought that "the evaluation of cognitive and control ability" was different from "the evaluation of criminal responsibility" and 94.9% of them thought that "to confirm the influence of the forensic psychiatric evaluation of mental disorder on the crime behavior" or "to assess of cognitive and control ability" met requirements of normative judicial expertise.@*CONCLUSION@#The evaluation of cognitive and control ability is more aligned with legal requirements and behavioral norms of own subject than the evaluation of responsibility.

The significance of contribution degree of hurting factors in mental injury and the research progress / 法医学杂志

In forensic psychiatric evaluation, experts frequently need to assess the contribution degree of hurting factors to the victims. The contribution degree reflects the extent of hurt caused by the injurer and is the quantitative index of the responsibility which should be undertaken by the injurer. It is also important evidence for the judgement. Presently, there is no accepted and practicable quantitative tool to reflect the objective contribution degree. This article reviews domestic and international researches on the contribution degree of hurting factors in mental injury, including the concept, connotation, related assessment methods, problems in assessment and its future study trend.

An examination of the self-reported scale of brief psychopathological symptoms to detect malingering in forensic psychiatric subjects / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To examine the self-reported scale of brief psychopathological symptoms (SBPS) to detect malingering in forensic psychiatric cases.@*METHODS@#Two hundred and six cases with different types of psychiatric problems were tested by SBPS. All cases were separately evaluated by two experts.@*RESULTS@#About 34.5% cases (71/206) were classified as malingering by the cut-off 13 scores of SBPS. Compared with expert's evaluation, SBPS showed a false negative rate of 19.8% and a false positive rate of 1.7%, respectively, with a total accuracy rate of 90.8%. Cases involved in compensations including working injury and traffic accidence showed the highest rate of malingering (51%).@*CONCLUSION@#SBPS is useful for detecting malingering psychopathological symptoms.