INJURY CERTIFICATION: CORRELATION BETWEEN PHYSICAL CLINICAL FINDINGS AND MLC REPORTS
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Keywords
Injury certification, medico-legal case, physical findings, MLC report, clinical documentation, forensic medicine
Abstract
Background: Medico-legal clinical examination of injury is imperative as it connects clinical exam to legal investigation. Poor or incomplete documentation of the medico-legal case can impact injury type, severity, mechanism and timing.
Objective: To assess the correlation between physical clinical findings and medico-legal case reports among patients presenting with injuries.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study carried out in Saidu Medical College and its affiliated hospital in the period of January to June 2025. Using non-probability consecutive sampling technique, 72 cases of medico-legal injury cases were enrolled. A structured proforma was used to record demographic, case characteristics, physical clinical findings and findings from the medico-legal report. Findings from clinical examination were compared to the corresponding entries in the MLC report. Concordance was deemed to be complete, partial or discordant. The SPSS Statistics 26 was used for analysis of data. Categorical variables were presented as frequencies and percentages; agreement was analyzed by Cohen's kappa statistic.
Results: Among 72 cases, complete concordance between clinical findings and MLC reports was observed in 50 (69.4%) cases, partial concordance in 15 (20.8%), and discordance in 7 (9.8%) cases. Agreement was highest for severity of injury and site of injury, while documentation gaps were more common for injury size, freshness of injury, number of injuries, and probable weapon/object.
Conclusion: Physical clinical findings and MLC reports showed a generally acceptable level of agreement; however, incomplete documentation remained an important concern. Structured injury certification formats, proper injury measurement, documentation of injury age, and regular medico-legal audit may improve the reliability and legal value of MLC reports.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
All articles published in JPTCP are licensed under Copyright Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Mahwish Zeb
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad, Pakistan
Ihsan Ullah
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Jinnah Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan
Muhammad Iqbal
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Saidu Medical College, Swat, Pakistan
Anwar Ali
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Muhammad College of Medicine, Peshawar, Pakistan
Khalid Saleem
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, College of Medicine and Dentistry at the Hills, Abbottabad, Pakistan
Nayella Nijat Bangash
Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad, Pakistan.
