Education and Training Preferences of Medicolegal Death Investigators in Collecting Family History for Cases Surrounding Sudden Unexpected Death
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Madison Perry
CoPIs:
Heather MacLeod, Lisa Marie Castillo, Jill Fischer, Sarah Toledo
College:
The College of Health Professions and Human Services
Major:
Genetic Counseling
Faculty Research Advisor(s):
Jill Fischer
Abstract:
Sudden unexpected death (SUD), is a circumstance that more commonly occurs in otherwise healthy-appearing individuals. Approximately five million lives are lost per year globally to SUD. With that, in up to a third of comprehensive medicolegal investigations, no identifiable cause of death can be found. When SUD occurs, the death is typically reported to local coroner or medical examiner's offices. In this case, medicolegal death investigators (MDI) are the first to be in contact with the family to interview for history. If no physical identification of death can be found at the preliminary investigation, the concern for genetic testing increases. This study is to determine the experience of medicolegal death investigators in training in regard to family history collection surrounding a sudden unexplained death case. This study will also gauge the level of confidence MDIs have in obtaining family history. Learning styles in which medicolegal investigators prefer to be trained were also investigated. The results are predicted to accept the null hypothesis in that there was not enough significant data to reject that MDIs are not trained to ask basic family history questions surrounding a sudden unexplained death, and, therefore, do not ask questions in their initial death investigation that allow for basic assessment of risk for sudden death in a family.