Samob¾jcze zatrucia srodkami chemicznymi i lekami w latach 1991-2000 w materiale krakowskiego Zakladu Medycyny Sadowej.

191 cases of fatal suicidal poisonings in the years 1991-2000 were analysed. Postmortem examinations were conducted in the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Jagiellonian University. The group of poisonings was selected from a total of 1937 fatal suicidal cases examined in our Institute. Frequency of suicidal attempts, kind of chemicals/drugs used, age and sex relationships, probable motives and seasonal a variables were taken into account in our investigation. The results were compared to previous studies. Poisonings comprise about 10% of the total number of suicidal cases. The most frequent are poisonings using drugs, then using chemicals. The number of cases of males committing suicide by poisoning is about twice as many as seen in females in such cases. The most important motives were mental disturbances, the latter most frequent motives were alcoholism and somatic illnesses. The peak of number of cases was noted in the summer months, June and July (about 1/3 of the total number of cases). In the last decade we systematically observed both a rise in the total number of suicides and a lower percentage of poisonings.