It is not known how mortality differs between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic individuals. We linked data from subjects having been in forensic mental examinations at Niuvanniemi Hospital during 1984-1993 to the data from the National Death Registry to estimate the association between psychopathy and mortality. One hundred psychopathic individuals scoring 25 or higher in the PCL-R scale were followed up for 20-30 years. Two control groups were used as follows: 178 offenders scoring less than 25 on the PCL-R, and sample of general population drawn from the Finnish National Statistics database. Results reveal that psychopaths die younger than the general population, and the causes of death are more violent than in the nonpsychopath control group. There was a significant positive correlation between PCL-R score and mortality, and the mortality among psychopaths was about fivefold when compared with general population.
Keywords: PCL-R; causes of death; forensic science; mortality; psychopathy; unnatural death.
© 2017 The Authors Journal of Forensic Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Academy of Forensic Sciences.