Deliberate self-poisoning : Experience at a Medical Unit

To share our experience of managing acute DSP patients, a cross sectional, observational study was conducted for one year. Patients with acute DSP, defined as "ingestion of a poison or excessive dose of a medicine for self-harm" were included. Patient demographics (gender, age, educational, and marital status etc), intention, substance used, and outcome were noted. Eighty patients (47 female, and 33 male) were managed. Mean patient age was 24.35 +/- 7.69 years. Most of the patients were educated up to 10th grade, were unmarried, resident of urban area, occupation wise household related, and belonged to middle class. Majority (55%) of patients wanted to commit suicide. Benzodiazepines (31.3%) and organophosphate (OP) compounds (21.3%) were commonly used for DSP. 2.5% (n = 2) patients expired. DSP with OP compounds was significantly associated with suicidal intention.