English

Abstract

In the modern era of globalization, the quest for better life has gone to such an extent that people are getting demoralized and frustrated easily by failures, though they may be trivial in nature. The results of such factors accumulate into a steady increase in the incidence of suicide day by day. The present work concentrates around this issue of human loss considering different demographic data in this cross sectional study. Authors have gathered an extensive data from post mortem records and interviews and have shown that suicide is more common among the females and young adults. Dowry deaths including torture by the in law’s still tops the list as aetiology for the females. Low economy, lower education level accounts for this tragedy. Poisoning and burning consists more than half of the cases as far as the mode of deaths are concerned. INTRODUCTION: Like any research, study of different factors behind suicide primarily needs a definition of the title. W.H.O. came up with a definition of ‘Suicide Act’ that states ‘a self – inflicted injury with varying degrees of lethal intent and awareness of motive’. This criterion is sufficient to distinguish suicide, from other deaths, which are either inflicted on self unconsciously. Suicide worldwide is estimated to represent 1.8% of the total global burden of disease in 1998, and 2.4% in countries with market and former socialist economies in 20201. India also faces the threat of manpower loss due to such human actions. Among the last few years the suicide and suicidal attempt rates have gone very high. These are quite evident from the data that we get from the Newspapers and different electronic media. But a concrete study regarding this threat is invariably lacking. MATERIAL AND METHOD: In the present work material consists of human subjects with established history of commission of suicide. Criteria for case selection: The quality of data on suicide mortality is considerably associated with the procedures underlying the ascertainment of a suicide. This is a two stage process: first the death has to be recognized as being due to other than natural causes; second, it has to be established that it was caused by a deliberate act of the deceased with the intention of ending his or her own life. For this purpose following will be the criteria for present study. 1) Death registered or reported as a case of suicide to police and legal authorities. 2) Death suggestive of suicide by detailed postmortem examination. 3) Cases with suicidal notes. Collection of data: Materials were obtained from – 1) Cases coming directly coming to the R.G. Kar Police Morgue. 2) Cases dying in the government or private hospital and then coming to the R.G. Kar Police Morgue.