External challenges for specialists dealing with forensic autopsies

Abstract

Background In addition to poor infrastructure, and human resource constraints, forensic medicine specialists in developing countries face many external challenges. Objectives We aimed to investigate the prevalence, type, and source of external challenges confronting them including sex, age, religion, deceased's place of residence and the number of accompanying relatives. Materials and methods This cross-sectional, observational study was conducted between August 2020 and July 2022 at the Mortuary of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar with the approval of the ethical committee. Results Of note, forensic medicine specialists faced external challenges in about one in five cases (20.5%). Most demands were to either minimise the autopsy procedure (n = 65) or to conduct the autopsy at inappropriate times (n = 58). The demands to minimise the autopsy procedure were significantly associated with the deceased's age (p = 0.046), religion (p = 0.010), socioeconomic class (p = 0.020) and manner of death (p = 0.019). Conclusions Our study found that forensic medicine specialists in India face significant external challenges. Avoiding unnecessary complete autopsies, implementing night autopsies, and embracing minimally invasive autopsies are recommended to mitigate these challenges.