Deliberate Self-Harm by Burning: A Retrospective Case Controlled Study

Abstract

Thirty-seven referrals to a liaison psychiatry service after deliberate self-harm by burning were compared with a control group of people referred to the same service after deliberate self-harm by other means. We found that the group who self-harmed by burning were more likely to have psychotic symptoms, be prescribed psychotropic medication at the time of the self-burns and to be psychiatric inpatients at the time of self-harm compared with controls. The implications of the findings are discussed. The development of good communication and joint working between staff in psychiatry and burns units is particularly important to support the care of this group of patients.

Intentional burns in Nepal: A comparative study

“…The burden of intentional burn is not equally distributed across the globe [8] with higher incidences reported in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) [8][9][10][11][12] compared with high-income countries where such burns represent only 1-9% of burn admissions [6,13,14]. Self-inflicted burns include a spectrum of burns from self-harm with minimal injury to suicide by self-immolation [9][10][11][12][15][16][17], and represent major medical and social concerns globally [18]. Self-inflicted burns are often associated with pre-existing psychiatric illness, specific racial and cultural backgrounds, gender, lower socio-economic status and inadequate access to mental health care [12,[18][19][20][21][22][23]; and patients have a poor prognosis [7,14].…”

A case-control study of psychosocial risk and protective factors of self-immolation in Iran

“…While the male to female ration in self-immolation is higher in developed countries [17], in Eastern Mediterranean countries such as Iran, Afghanestan, India, Sir Lanka share self-immolation is highly prevalent among young adults [3,[18][19][20], women [21,17,22,23], and population that experience economic adversity and poverty and low education [16,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

Psychiatric Disorders (Axis I and Axis II) and Self‐Immolation: A Case–Control Study from Iran*

“…Suicide by self‐immolation is among the most difficult personal acts to understand (1). Scientists have recently begun to explore the psychological risk factors for self‐immolation in an attempt to understand what individual difference factors might lead individuals to attempt to kill themselves through burning (2–8). …”