Caracterización de las muertes violentas registradas en el Servicio Nacional de Investigación y Ciencias Forenses de la ciudad de Cuenca durante el año 2018

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Violent death is the one that is not caused by a pathology or disease and that statistically ranks as one of the 10 leading causes of death worldwide, nationally and locally. This raises concerns both for the annual increase in its prevalence, and for the seriousness of the consequences for their families, community and society. There are few local studies on the subject that can help the competent authorities to act in a timely manner. OBJECTIVE: To characterize the violent deaths registered in the general death forms of the National Research and Forensic Sciences Service of the city of Cuenca during 2018. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study in which the types of violent death registered in the National Research and Forensic Sciences Service of the city of Cuenca were characterized, during the period January-December 2018. The variables studied were: age, sex, origin, marital status, education, type of violent death, causal agent. We worked with the total of archived forms. The collected data were entered into an Excel designed database and subsequently analyzed in the SPSS version 22.0 program through frequency and percentage tables. RESULTS: Violent deaths occurred mainly in males (74.0%), in the age group between 21 and 30 years (22.1%), people of urban origin (66.6%) and in the single population (58.9%). The most frequent type was accidental death (73.0%) and the main causative agents were traffic accidents and mechanical asphyxia. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that in 2018, the majority of violent deaths registered in Azuay were accidental deaths due to traffic accidents. A lower proportion represented suicide by mechanical asphyxia, which was followed by homicide where the causal agent white arm is especially important.