Retrospective identification of episodes of deliberate self-harm from emergency room registers in general hospitals: an example from Shanghai.

The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of using currently available emergency department (ED) records to retrospectively ascertain the prevalence and characteristics of episodes of medically treated deliberate self-harm (DSH). Discussions with ED staff identified 10 ED diagnoses in persons 12 years of age or older that were commonly used for episodes of DSH and another 7 injury-related diagnoses that could, under specific conditions, be acts of DSH. A retrospective analysis of the ED registry of one large general hospital in Shanghai for 2007 to 2010 identified all cases with one of these diagnoses.