Profile and in-hospital outcomes of deliberate self-harmed patients in a tertiary care centre

Abstract

Objective: Suicide is an unrecognised and underestimated epidemic of high complexity and accounts for premature loss of at least 1 million lives worldwide, leaving behind irreparable loss and backlash to family, friends and society. This study was carried out with the aim of analysing the clinical presentation, modes of deliberate self-harm (DSH), demographic and biochemical features with outcomes of patients presenting with DSH and admitted through the emergency unit of the medicine department to a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India. Materials and Methods: The clinical presentation, demographic details, psychiatric evaluation and blood investigations of patients admitted with a history of DSH during the study (2020–2021) were analysed, with special emphasis on serum cholesterol, C-reactive protein (CRP) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). Results: In this study, of the 508 patients studied, the most common mode of self-harm was poisoning by drug overdose (32.28%) followed by plant toxin poisoning and rodenticide ingestion-finding different from other studies of South India during this COVID pandemic. Values of TSH, serum cholesterol, CRP and haematogram were normal in majority of patients. All the patients underwent psychiatry evaluation in which substance abuse, adjustment disorders and personality disorders were the most common diagnosis reached. Conclusions: Clinical profile and methods of DSH have marked regional variation necessitating the need to create a regional database. Serum cholesterol, CRP and TSH are subject to genotypic and regional variations and thus are not reliable as biomarkers of suicidal ideation.