Suicidal cases in medicolegal autopsy of eastern Nepal
Shivendra Jha
B P Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal
: Forensic Toxicol Pharmacol 2015, 4:4
Abstract
This retrospective study was aimed to investigate the trend/pattern of suicidal cases autopsied from April 2005 to April 2010 at B P Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal. Out of 1701 autopsied cases during that period, suicidal cases were 583 (34.2%). The autopsied case of suicide increased alarmingly from 29.5% in 2005 to 41.4% in 2010. Females (52.7%) slightly outnumbered males (47.3%) with 74% of victims of 11-40 year’s age range. Hindus were 88.2% and 71% of the total victims were married. Lesser cases of suicide occurred in winter months of January (5.8%) and December (7.2%). Majority of victims (82%) were found dead when brought to hospital. Suicidal note was absent in almost all of the cases (99%). Poisoning (61.6%) constituted the most common mode of suicide followed by hanging (33.6%). Burn was found to be more in females than male (3.5:1). Intervention by the treatment has a very little role to save the life of such person so the causes of poisoning which are principally sociological and psychological has to be taken care of. Some policy has to be made to control the easy availability of the poison in the society. Proper counseling of the population to counteract with the stressful situations has to be done and also proper opportunity for the population to employment has to be generated so that the poverty is overcome.
Biography
Shivendra Jha is currently Additional Professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences University, Dharan, Nepal and has completed his MD from the same institution. He is also Assistant Dean (examination) at the same BPKIHS University, Dharan, Nepal from 8 th March 2013 till now. He has published more than 20 papers in reputed journals.
