Multidiscipliner approach to a filicide case

The term 'filicide' refers to the parents who killed their own child or the act committed by these parents. Filicide is one of the prominent reasons of child deaths in developped countries. Even though it is a rare situation... [ view full abstract ]

The term 'filicide' refers to the parents who killed their own child or the act committed by these parents. Filicide is one of the prominent reasons of child deaths in developped countries. Even though it is a rare situation that parents kill their own children, it may lead to dramatic consequences. Understanding family dynamics and parental charactersitics is important for recognizing the families under risk and carrying out necessary interventions. A detailed and rigorous evaluation process is required for the cases directed with filicide suspicion. Pediatrists,child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychologists, adult psychiatrists and psycholgists and forensic medicine doctors, social services, forensic institutions should execute this process together. In this panel a family who lost their three children sequentially and their last children left -a five year 9 months old girl- who is thought to be under risk will be discussed in terms of filicide because no medical reasons underlying the death of the children could be found. The difficulties in the evaluation process, family dynamics, psychological evaluation of parents, the play assessments and therapy of the last living child, social service approach, the cooperation with forensic institutions will be described in detail in the context of this case being followed with play assessments and therapy in additon to all the medical examinations. Based on these the importance of multidisicipliner approach will be discussed.