Psychological injury assessment under civil law

• Autor(a) principal: Melo, Bruna
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Bettencourt, Mariana Mendonça, Colón, Máximo Fernandez, Henriques, Carla, Matos, Ana
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/38313
• topic: Civil Law; Psychological Injury Assessment; Forensic Psychologial Assessment; Forensic Psychiatry; Mental Injury

The objective of injury assessment under Civil Law is to fully compensate all injuries arising from the occurrence, both property and non-property (Article 562 of the Civil Code - " whoever is obliged to compensate an injury must reconstitute the situation that would have existed if the event requiring compensation had not occurred ). In the specific field of Forensic Psychiatry, post-traumatic injury assessment is particularly difficult due to the singularity and subjectivity of the clinical aspects linked to this specialty. The aim of this work is to provide a clinical and socio-demographic description of the individuals assessed in the scope of compensation of injury under Civil Law, in the psychological-forensic context, at the INMLCF Center Delegation, as well as in the Medical-Legal Office Dão-Lafões, in the time period between 2015 and the end of 2018. It is also intended to assess the relationship between the established diagnoses and the valuation. Bearing this purpose in mind, a non-systematic review of the literature on the topic was carried out, as well as consultation of the medico-legal processes concerning the 102 individuals assessed. A description of the sample was carried out, and the association between injury valuation and various sociodemographic and clinical variables was subsequently assessed. In 12.7% of the assessments the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was made, in 10.8% of adjustment Disorders and in 6.9% of Other Reactions to Severe Stress Disorders The group of individuals diagnosed with "post-traumatic stress disorder" had valuations which tended to be higher than the other groups. The majority of the traumatic events were road accidents, in line with the numbers found in the literature. The higher valuation of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder might be explained by the disability its symptoms entail. In future studies, it would be important to make a more extensive analysis of examined individual's premorbid state, such as their previous personality or previous psychopathology.