Introduction:

The scientific literature reports that psychological autopsy from its beginnings was used with the purpose of helping to determine the circumstances of death of a person, however, it is currently embraced more as a concept than as a procedural tool.

Objective:

to establish if in Colombia it has been used to reconstruct the pre-mortem aspects of those who have died under strange circumstances, according to its purpose.

Methodology:

a systematic review of the scientific literature was carried out in 10 databases, using as keywords psychological autopsy and Colombia, under a window of observation between 2010 and 2021; using the PRISMA method.

Results:

they show that in Colombia during the last 10 years the number of studies published in databases amounts to 19, of which 16 did not use the psychological autopsy procedure and only three of them did.

Discussion:

There is a tendency to use psychological autopsy as a concept from a clinical approach to support retrospective analyses rather than as a technique or procedure, distancing us from the possibility of reconstructing the criminodynamics of the crime, as well as reconstructing aspects of the personality, mental state and lifestyle of the deceased.

Conclusions:

it is highlighted that in Colombia the psychological autopsy has been used exclusively in the clinical field, without the scientific and methodological rigor and without the validity of the protocol used.