Informed Consent for the Publication of Case Reports of Deceased Subjects in Medicolegal Journals: A Comparative Review of Editorial Policies and a Proposal.

INTRODUCTION

Case reports and case series are central to forensic pathology, yet they almost invariably concern a deceased subject and often contain potentially identifying material. International publication ethics standards on consent (ICMJE, COPE) were designed for the living clinical patient, leaving unsettled how journals should treat consent when the subject is dead, and death has been investigated by a judicial, rather than consensual, autopsy.

METHODS

Narrative comparative review of the author instructions ("Guide for Authors") of 22 forensic and medicolegal journals across eleven publishers, consulted directly and complemented by publisher-level patient-consent policies and the ICMJE and COPE meta-standards. For each journal, whether the deceased subject is addressed, who may consent, the anonymization requirement, and handling of the consent form were recorded.

RESULTS

No journal stated a consent rule calibrated to the forensic setting; none addressed the investigating authority, judicial secrecy, or an autopsy ordered by law. The deceased subject is handled almost everywhere through generic clinical provisions inherited from the publisher (next of kin or legal representative). Three approaches emerged: inherited generic consent (the majority), anonymization only, and scope exclusion. One wholly forensic journal omits the deceased subject entirely. Journals also differed in whether the signed consent form is merely retained, confirmed, or submitted.

CONCLUSIONS

Medicolegal journals do not adapt the inherited clinical consent standard to forensic practice. A tiered decision framework and a model deceased-subject clause-distinguishing judicial from consensual autopsy and integrating anonymization and scope discipline-are proposed for editors and authors.