[Differences in psychiatric expertise of responsibility: Assessment and initial hypotheses through a review of literature].
[Differences in psychiatric expertise of responsibility: Assessment and initial hypotheses through a review of literature].
复制标题
[责任精神病学专业知识的差异:通过文献综述进行评估和初步假设]。
DOI:
10.1016/j.encep.2015.03.002
复制
发表时间:
2015
期刊:
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
J. Chabannes
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
J. Guivarch;M. Piercecchi;D. Glezer;J. Chabannes
ObjectivesOur objective was to identify the main points of disagreement between psychiatric experts and to propose explicative hypotheses.Materials and methodsFor this, we carried out a literature review on PubMed, Science Direct and Cairn, and studied the report of the 2007 public hearing on forensic psychiatric assessment with contributions from different authors. The keywords were: forensic psychiatry, psychiatric court report, psychiatric expertise, differences among experts, legal responsibility, and discernment. We defined differences as disagreements between experts, or as a mismatch in conclusions and approaches of experts.ResultsThe differences among experts concerned mainly forensic interpretation, ie the discussion of the relationship between pathology and offense, particularly in contexts that involve a larger forensic discussion, including interruption of medication, use of drugs, association with antisocial personality, premeditation, denial of facts, especially when the accused suffers from a mental illness (especially schizophrenia). For a finding of abolition of discernment, an expert must consider two requirements, one temporal (the mental disease must be active during offense) and the other causal that involves seeking a direct and exclusive relationship between the offence and the mental state, according to expert jurisprudence. Some experts do not comply with these two requirements or this jurisprudence, whence differences. There were also diagnostic differences and disputes relating to the concept of" alteration of discernment". Disagreements appeared to be related primarily to personal ideologies or different schools of thought that influenced interpretations and conclusions of experts, eg accountability as a therapeutic response for the psychotic person. Then, the lack of clarity of expert mission regarding necessary causal relationship—between any disease and crime—to demonstrate to conclude an abolition of discernment, could also contribute to differences. Moreover, time available to achieve the mission is too short and the expert would not devote enough time to an expert examination, which could lead to less good expertise and differences; especially as observed clinical examination in expertise is sometimes difficult, misleading, due to pathological reticence of accused mentally ill but also sometimes due to possible simulations. Finally, the low quality of some expert reports—due in part to the less well-trained experts, but also the particular conditions of achievement of expertise, especially in prisons—were mentioned by some authors as causes of differences.DiscussionIt appears from this review of literature that differences mainly concern forensic interpretation and are mainly explained by ideologies. This synthesis is a preliminary work prior to a study among psychiatric experts.