Epidemiology of suicide: Autopsy audit of five years in an industrial city of Punjab

Objective: To determine the epidemiological pattern of suicidal deaths in an industrial city of Punjab Province over a period of five years as well as to determine the gender and age group mostly affected. Study Design: Retrospective Cross-sectional Descriptive study. Setting: Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad. Period: 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2023. Methods: Subjects of the study were victims of suicidal death in areas covered by Police stations where the postmortem was performed in the Mortuary of Punjab Medical College / Faisalabad Medical University. Data was collected from respective official Police records, FIRs and Postmortem reports and recorded on pre-structured proformas. It was categorized on the basis of manner of death, type of weapon, gender and age groups involved. Results: A total of 1329 autopsies were conducted during the Five-year time period from 2019 to 2023 in which 82 cases (6.17%) were labelled as Suicide on Autopsy and Police inquest. The highest percentage of suicides was recorded in year 2020 with 19 out of 254 cases (7.48%). Among the suicidal cases, 81.7% were males predominantly in the age group 20-29 years. It was found that 57.3% cases were reported from the rural areas. Hanging accounted for 65.8% of suicidal deaths making it the major method employed to commit suicide. Conclusion: Our study concluded that 6.71% cases of suicide were reported among all autopsy cases during the five-year time period of 2019-2023. Among these, young males in age group 20-29 years from rural areas were in majority and hanging was the most common method of suicide employed.