P-1425 - Substance abuse versus mechanical methods in non-lethal self-injury in penitentiary environment

Introduction Along with inflicting superficial wounds, substances ingestion - usually drugs - is the most common way of committing the autolitic acts. The databases regarding psychological and pharmacological treatment are insufficient and they are not corroborated. Aims The objective of the research was to establish the socio-demographic characteristics of this category which is vulnerable to self-injury and to determine the differences between the patients who use substances abuse and those who use mechanical means. Methods The study was done on a number of 175 inmates (all males), who committed non-lethal autolitic acts between the 1 st of January 2009 and the 31 st of December 2009. The group was divided in two - one group of persons who committed the self-injury through chemical methods N = 48 and another one using mechanical means, N = 127. The data has been processed using SPSS 17.0 software, through cross-sectional and descriptive analysis, average comparison test and non-parametric ones. Results The average age of those with substance abuse was 3 years lower. They have committed the self-injury especially on Saturdays, the other ones mostly on Wednesdays and Mondays and, although they have all accepted the therapeutic intervention, a larger number of patients were hospitalized. The ones using mechanical means had more frequent recurrences. Conclusions There are significant differences between the patients with substances abuse and those who used mechanical means. It seems that the motivation for the act in itself is different and the psychological counseling that followed was done more systematically for those with substances abuse.