Introduction
The evidence base for assessing whether a single stab injury to the trunk was inflicted by another person in an assault or self-inflicted is mostly derived by studying autopsy populations. However, by studying characteristics in surviving victims of assaults, other factors of importance might be discernable.

Methods and materials
Surviving victims of assaults with single stab injuries to the trunk were identified utilizing a registry with all cases of clinical forensic medicine assessed by the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine in the year 2016. As reference groups, we also included homicides and suicides following single stabs to the trunk using the Swedish forensic autopsy register for the years 2010 to 2021. We extracted demographics, crime circumstances, and injury characteristics. The data was analyzed using Chi-square test, Fisher´s exact test and Mann-Whitney U test.

Results
We identified 83 surviving victims of assaults to be compared with 94 homicides and 45 suicides. The populations of assaults and homicides showed similar proportions of gender distribution (90.4 vs. 92.6 % males) and median age (31 years vs. 33 years). The suicide population was also male dominated (82.2 %), but with a significantly higher median age (52 years) (p < 0.001). Assaults and homicides were associated with an outdoor location (59.7 vs. 54.3 %), without a nearby sharp force instrument (75.9 vs. 69.1 %). In contrast, most suicides occurred in the victim’s own home (79.5 %) with a sharp force instrument observed in association with the body in nearly all cases (95.6 %). A similar proportion of cases with defensive wounds were seen in assaults and homicides (10.8 vs. 10.6 %). The ratio of entrance injury to the thorax in relation to abdomen was significantly lower in survivors of assaults (1.2) compared to homicides (3.3) (p = 0.002) and compared to suicides (2.8) (p = 0.04).

Discussion and conclusion
The demographics and the context observed in survivors of assaults was similar as observed in the homicide group, with similar differences in comparison with the suicide group. Absence of entrance injury to the thorax as opposed to the abdomen seem to be associated with survival in assaults. We speculate that access to medical care might be an additional factor that determines survival in assaults. The two groups, homicides and survivors of assaults, can be used interchangeably in studies on characteristics in sharp force trauma.