64 in-patient cases of non-fatal self-poisoning were compared with 64 individually matched controls. A strongly significant association was found between unemployment & self-poisoning. Further analysis revealed no firm evidence to support the hypothesis that unemployment was causally related to self-poisoning in an indirect manner. Possibly some 3rd factor independently increases the risk of both unemployment & self-poisoning, giving rise to a non-causal relationship between these 2 variables.