Trends of Intentional Self Harm in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Sikkim-An Autopsy based Study

Sikkim, a peaceful and mountainous terrain state shows an increasing trend of suicides This trend is not only shocking but predicts an unhealthy trend. This study was done for profiling of the post mortem cases with special emphasis to suicides and pattern based on the socio-epidemiological parameters. In our study we found that in 15.2% of total autopsies, death was due to a natural disease process where 84.81% were classified as unnatural deaths. Accidental deaths, Intentional self-harm and Homicides comprised 65.55%, 28.82% and 5.6% of unnatural death respectively. The findings point out that the deaths due to hanging are alarmingly high comprising 77.27% of total cases of suicides followed by poisoning with 16.66% of cases. Hanging was most common in age group of 21–30 years with 27.45% of total cases. About 60.7% of the hanging victims showed a male predominance.