Socio-economic and demographic profile of farmer's death cases in rural medical college of central India: An autopsy based study

Abstract

Medico-legally term suicide is the act of taking one's own life voluntarily. It has been observed that among all unnatural deaths, accident tops the list followed by suicide and homicide. Farming is one of the oldest industries in the world and often portrayed as a happy way of life. Despite this, agriculture industry has one of the highest rates of suicides than others. The present study comprises cases of alleged suicide among the Farmers’ brought for medicolegal autopsy at the Medical College in Rural area of Central India. A retrospective and prospective study was carried out over the period of 4 years from August 2013 to July 2017. 196 cases of suicides were studied during above mentioned period. Causative factors for suicide were Bankruptcy or Indebtedness 103(52.55%) cases and Farming Related Issues 52 (26.53%) cases followed by Family problems, illness, marriage related issue and poverty, accounting for 11(5.61%), 6(3.06%), 1 (0.51%) and 1 (0.51%) respectively. Maximum deaths was noted in young adult age group of20-40 years, Male (91.84%) outnumbered the female (8.16%). The majority (80.61%) were married and from lower economic class. maximum victims of farmers’ suicidal deaths were educated among 1st to 10th standard (71.94%), followed by illiterate (19.39). Maximum farmers’ suicide occurred in rainy season (37.24%); followed by winter season (31.63%).