Citation

Pandey RK, Samadder SK. Indian J. Forensic Med. Toxicol. 2019; 13(2): 138-143.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. Deptartment of Forensic Medicine)

DOI

10.5958/0973-9130.2019.00101.4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Background - In recent years many researches suggested that body mass index is inversely related to suicide. But only a limited literature explored the association of body mass index with method opted for suicide. The current research aims to find out the association between body mass index and method opted for suicide in Indian scenario.

METHOD - Case-control study was conducted in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. 70 hanging cases, 43 poisoning cases were compared with 50 road traffic accident postmortem study samples brought for medicolegal autopsy. Height and weight measured, body mass index calculated and categorised. Data were analysed using R version 3.3.3.

CONCLUSION - The present study suggests death by hanging and by poisoning, the two most common methods of suicide in India, decreases with increase in BMI (p < 0.01). But, BMI cannot be used as a predictor of method opted for suicide, i.e., hanging or poisoning, in underweight, normal and overweight BMI categories (p > 0.05). © 2019, Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

human; suicide; Suicide; Hanging; female; male; Poisoning; incidence; autopsy; Body mass index; mortality; traffic accident; hospitalization; hanging; kidney disease; intoxication; obesity; controlled study; victim; poison; cardiovascular disease; underweight; case control study; body weight; supine position; body mass; Article; body height; ascites; measurement accuracy; Road traffic accident