Rorschach test in murderers: a systematic review of the literature 1946-2021 - III – case control groups comparative studies: murderers versus suicides and versus normal controls

Abstract

A total of 91 studies on Rorschach test in murderers from 1946 to 2021, written in English (62), French (13), Italian (12) or other languages (N = 4; Portuguese, Spanish and German) were reviewed, searched from the main databases (PubMed, Medline Complete, Embase, PsycINFO, PsycNET, PEPWeb, Cochrane, Gallica and Perseus) and other relevant sources (Google scholar; books and journals in the Rorschach field; Rorschach bibliographies; Buros MMY Mental Measurement Yearbooks), as well as from researcher networks (academia.edu, researchgate.net) and from the list of references of identified  articles. Literature searching, study selection, screening and data extraction were carried out independently and concordantly by two authors. All the papers containing data on the Rorschach test in murderers were included, but only the contributions whose full text pdf was available were considered.  Five types of studies were identified: 1) Literature reviews (N = 4); 2) Single case studies (N = 31); 3) Descriptive studies on murderer samples without controls (N = 20) or compared with normative data (N = 2); 4) Case-Control groups comparative studies (N = 28); 5) Miscellanea (N = 6). All the studies have been summarized in detail, so as to almost always replace a direct reading. The present paper concerns two subgroups of case control groups comparative studies, respectively comparing murderers with normal controls (N = 8), and murderers with suicides and attempted suicides (N =3). The results are extensively discussed, focusing on forensic implications and indications for future research.