Discussion on the effectiveness of evidence in a psychological autopsy : Precedents analysis of psychological autopsy through topic modeling

Current study attempted to investigate the evidence utility of psychological autopsy based on precedents accumulated over the past 10 years. Precedents analysis was conducted by applying topic modeling, and the main topics of psychological autopsy were confirmed. 
For the study, the case law was selected based on the information of the Korean court and the National Legal Information Center. If the lower court and the appeal were the same case, the final 46 precedents were integrated into one document and used as analysis data, and the above data were classified by time and case. Reviewing the original and topic modeling results showed that ‘Interpersonal factors', including all the personal environment of office worker suicide, stressful work environment and socio-economic factors. ‘Inner suicide risk factor', which urged the suicide of the deceased, which is important to suicide prediction and can affect suicide behavior. ‘Purpose of psychological autopsy’ which can be obtained through psychological autopsy. ‘Organizational-related factors' including suicide-related factors in the military, indicating that the psychological state before suicide is often caused by job stress. ‘Source of information on psychological autopsy' which can obtain the information necessary to conduct psychological autopsy is an issue of psychological autopsy precedents found in precedents. These results can be used as evidence to determine policy development and precedent trends related to the evidence utility of psychological autopsy in the future.