Suicidal trends in children and adolescents

Birth and death are two inevitable truths. Person once born has to die one or the other day. As children and adolescents form future of the family, their deliberate death brings severe pain and agony to their parents and relatives. To evaluate the suicidal deaths in above mentioned population with respect to age, sex, methods adopted and reasons for termination of life, a retrospective study of 5 years from Jan’05 to Dec’09 was undertaken. Age was set according to the Indian law which considers children as up to 14 years and adolescents up to 18 years. Out of 2732 autopsies conducted at the mortuary, Government General Hospital Gulbarga, 34 cases were found to be of our interest.

Girls (70.6%) outnumbered boys (29.4%) in terms of deaths encountered. Common modalities observed were burns (12 cases), poisoning (11 cases), drowning (5 cases), Hanging (5 Cases), run over by railway (1 case). Major cause to commit suicide was depression and frustration, followed by broken families, academic failures, and love disappointment.