The Study of assault cases in clinical forensic medicine unit at apex institute

Dr. Gorakhnath V. suramwad; Dr. Laxman Gangadhar Phad

Volume : VI, Issue : VIII, August - 2017

The Study of assault cases in clinical forensic medicine unit at apex institute

Dr. Gorakhnath V. Suramwad, Dr. Laxman Gangadhar Phad

Abstract :

Background: The present study has been carried out at the casualty and Emergency Department in tertiary care hospital and Medical College during the period of November 2010 to October 2012, on 813 medicolegal cases of interpersonal violence ought for treatment and injury certification were studied comprising 606 males and 207 females in the age range of 11 to 70 years.

Objectives: The study was carried out to evaluate the patterns of injuries in the victims of interpersonal violence with respect to age and gender of the victims, time of occurrence, residence of victims, places of occurrence, patterns of injuries sustained, time interval between the incident of interpersonal violence and the reporting of the victims to the emergency department. To evaluate the assailants involved in attacking their victims with respect to their number, gender, relationship with the victim and the predisposing factors behind the assault. To evaluate various kinds of weapons used by the perpetrators in executing their attacks according to the places of occurrence of the attacks and the gender of the victims.

Conclusions: Young males residing at urban areas are most common victims of interpersonal violence. They are often attacked on streets at night, by a single, stranger male while females are usually targeted indoors by spouse. Most important predisposing factor behind the assaults was financial dispute. Injury certification and treatment of female victims is usually delayed due to late reporting. Perpetrators prefer blunt weapons and target head neck face regions of the victims. Hard and blunt weapons are predominantly used indoors on females than outdoors on males. More than half of the violent episodes on males were associated with alcohol consumption by the victim.