Psychological autopsy – an integrative review of that investigation

Suicide is one of the most traumatic ways of death, because it ceases extemporaneously an individual’s life and touchingly shakes relatives, friends and the community. It is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon and stands for a serious problem of public health. Psychological autopsy is a retrospective investigation that helps in the suicide understanding, configuring itself as a primordial research tool. This study has aimed to identify elements for suicide understanding obtained through the usage of psychological autopsy. An integrative review of articles published in scientific literature took place through the databases SCIELO, LILACS and PubMed. The eligibility criteria were full and free of charge articles, published from 2010 to 2020, in Portuguese, Spanish and English idioms, on the subject of which we selected the best fifteen ones. As a result, we were able to identify several important risk factors: depression, suicidal ideations, previous attempts, family conflicts and alcohol abuse. There was prevalence of suicides in the male sex and hanging was the most used means. Psychological autopsy is not common in most countries, including Brazil, reason why it is urgent to spread it to understand suicide more deeply and mitigate its dire consequences.