Clinical characteristics of intentional self-harm inpatient with lethal methods

¹Department of Emergency Medicine, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
²Department of Psychiatry, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
³Department of Big Data Analytics, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea
⁴Telemedicine Center, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea

Correspondence

Moo Eob Ahn ,Tel: 033-240-5220, Fax: 033-240-5446, Email: mooeob@gmail.com,

Received: October 24, 2018; Revised: October 28, 2018 Accepted: October 28, 2018. Published online: October 31, 2019.

ABSTRACT

Objective:
The aim of this study was to identify the latent class, according to the risk factors, of the patients hospitalized due to intentional self-harm by lethal means.
Method:
The risk factors were derived by categorizing the intentional self-harming measures by lethal (hanging, pesticide poisoning, jumping, and drowning) and non-lethal (drug poisoning and stab) measures and comparing the demographics, diseased state, and suicide-related characteristics. Latent class analysis was performed to identify the type of intentional self-harm.
Results:
Male (sex), elderly (age), rural (residing location), and comorbid diseases were found to be the risk factors for fatal injuries. For this, four latent classes were modeled. Factors, such as the age group between 20 to 40 years, women, and family conflict were included in the first class. The second class included the age group between 30 to 50 years, men, and financial problems. The third class covered the age group between 60 to 70 years and comorbidity. The fourth class contained the age group of 10 to 50 years, women, and mental problems. The rate of suicide and choice of fatal suicide was ranked in the order of 3 (62.7%, 21.5%), 2 (59.8%, 13.9%), 4 (36.8%, 5.7%), and 1 (29.5%, 5.9%).
Conclusion:
A lethal mean access control policy needs to be established for the high-risk group of self-harm. Moreover, establishing an emergency room-community link prevention policy could help reduce the re-suicide attempt among suffering patients.

Key words: Suicide; Self-injurious behavior; Inpatients; Cluster analysis