Evaluation of childhood medicolegal autopsies in Bratislava and Trnava regions, Slovakia

Summary

Introduction:
Studies dealing with analysing cases of violent, sudden and unexpected deaths in childhood are very important, as these deaths can be prevented to a high percentage. The aim of this study is to evaluate the results of analysis of cases involving childhood deaths undergoing autopsy at Bratislava medico-legal workplaces within the catchment area of Bratislava and Trnava regions.

Patients and methods:
There was performed a retrospective analysis of autopsy protocols of death cases in childhood (from 0 to 14 years) at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the School of Medicine Comenius University and Department of Forensic Medicine of Health Care Surveillance Authority in Bratislava in the period 1999–2008.

Results:
In the monitored period there were detected 156 childhood deaths from the total number of 10,771 autopsied cases, which accounts for 1.45 %. Violent deaths were determined in 115 cases, i.e. 73.7 %. In 70.5 % of cases there were male children. The most frequent cause of death were injuries caused by a blunt object in 44.2 % of cases, followed by deaths caused by pathological causes (25.7 %), asphyxia (14.7 %), high temperature, intoxication, electrocution, etc. The external cause of death was most frequently traffic accidents in 56 cases (35.9 %), drowning in 13 cases (8.3 %) and homicides together with assaults in 12 cases (7.7 %). There were 45.5 % of the analysed cases in school age.

Conclusion:
The results of our analysis show that Bratislava and Trnava regions fall into regions with relatively low incidence of violent deaths in childhood. Our study has shown that many deaths could have been prevented by better care and higher responsibility of parents in particular, but also those who are responsible for the care and supervision of children.

Keywords:
childhood – autopsy – violent death – sudden death – unexpected death