Deliberate self harm: Socio-demographic profile

Deliberate self-harm is a challenging public health issue. We aimed to understand the behavior of deliberate self-harm, both fatal and nonfatal, in a tertiary health care setting. A two year retrospective hospital record-based research was conducted in a tertiary care hospital attached to a teaching medical institution in Karnataka to record socio-demographic profile and clinical outcome of suicidal behavior. Data were collected by using specially devised deliberate self-harm proforma. During the two year research period 137 patients were reported with deliberate self harm, among which 17 had fatal out come and 120 recovered after treatment. Of these 58.4% were females and 41.6% males. The majority (48.2%) cases were from age group of 21-30 years. Victims were predominantly belonged to Hindu community (83.2%). The majority of acts of deliberate self-harm (90%) were committed inside the home. Poisoning was the commonest (57.7%) method of self-harm, particularly using pesticide. Psychiatric illness was seen in 67.9% deliberate self harm victims.