Monica Agrawal, Narendra Kumar Tiwary, Nitu Nigam, Sudhir Kumar Verma, Medhavi Gautam, Durga Prasad Verma, Sunil Kumar Verma, Harish Gupta
BACKGROUND At any point of time, we can observe several cases of alleged self-harm in our medical wards. Although most of the studies look at nature and types of poison and its management & prognosis, there is a lack of data to analyse demographic profile of these victims. We wanted to assess demography including age, sex, marital status, religion, locality and mode of suicide of patients presenting to emergency department of our tertiary care hospital in North India. METHODS We looked into admission register of emergency department of our hospital and sorted out data of patients of alleged suicidal attempt. RESULTS We collected data of 408 patients admitted to our hospital. 365 (90%) were Hindus and rest belonged to other religions. 367 (90%) attempted suicide by poisoning, 36 (9%) by hanging and 5 (1%) by self-injury, including cutting wrist. 252 (62%) were males and 156 (38%) females. Out of these 156 females, 97 (62%) were married and rest 59 (38%) unmarried. CONCLUSIONS Suicide is a public health challenge. To control the problem, we need to measure its dimensions in its fullest extent. By looking at demography of these patients, we made an attempt to identify vulnerable population. And in the next step, potentially preventable measures should be taken to help the victims.
