Disease-knowledge-related suicide by cutting subclavian catheters in a woman undergoing haemodialysis: case report and review of the literature.

Patients undergoing haemodialysis have a higher incidence of depression and a higher suicidal rate than general population. In this report we present the case of a 49-year-old woman with a history of chronic renal insufficiency and subclavian catheters for haemodialysis, who was suffering from depression and alcohol abuse. She was found unconscious on her bed by her father, with profuse bleeding from the cut ends of the two catheters. After ruling out air embolism, the cause of death was ascribed to acute haemorrhage, whereas the manner of death was consistent with a suicide. This paper highlights the easier access to some peculiar suicide methods that some subjects can have due to their knowledge about their pathological conditions and/or the treatments they undergo, otherwise not available in the general population. Because of this particular feature, such self-suppressions can be termed "disease-knowledge-related" or "medical-knowledge-related" suicide.

Medico legal and epidemiological aspects of femicide in a judicial district of north eastern Italy.

Femicide is the intentional killing of a woman because she is female, and often occurs when there are pre-existing relations, intimate or otherwise, between the victim and the murderer. A retrospective epidemiological study was made of 34 female homicides recorded in a university departmental register of post-mortems, pertaining to a judicial district of about 700,000 inhabitants in north eastern Italy, during a 21-year period from January 1st 1993 to December 31st 2013. The temporal trend, the socio-demographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators, the circumstances surrounding the crime and the risk factors for femicide were studied with the aim of identifying and developing preventive strategies.