Analysis of suicide hanging deaths in South Bangalore: A three-year retrospective study

Abstract

Hanging is the most frequently encountered asphyxial death in forensic medicine practice. It is the second most common method employed to commit suicide in India. Easy availability and presence of wide range of ligature materials at home itself makes hanging a preferred method of committing suicide. This study was done at Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences & hospital Bangalore with an aim to evaluate suicidal hangings through perusal of postmortem reports retrospectively during the study period between Jan 2011 to Dec 2013. During the 3-year study period the study population had a total of 519 decedents ranging between age 11 years to 77 years. Victims of both sexes comprised the study population. Suicidal hangings with reference to age, sex, socioeconomic status of the decedents, educational qualification, motive, time, type of suspension and position of knot were studied to evaluate the relationship between different parameters. 62.63% of the decedents were males. The most common age group affected were in their third decade of life, who made 43.35 population 66.1% of victims died in complete suspension and remainder 33.0952% of victims had typical know placement while 47.6% had atypical knot placement. 58.38% of victims belonged to lower socioeconomic strata of which a majority shared an educational qualification up to pre-university weighing a percentage of 26%. The motive in majority of the deaths remained unknown (38.15%), family disputes ranked second with a percentage of 36.03.