Self-incineration: a controlled comparison of in-patient suicide attempts. Clinical features and history of self-harm.
A systematic survey of in-patient accidents and injuries in an inner London hospital over 9 years established that, after incisions and overdoses, self-incineration was one of the commoner methods of violent self-harm. A case-controlled study of in-patient suicide attempts compared a series of 12 self-incinerators with 12 patients using other methods. Irrespective of method, the suicide attempt was predominantly a psychotic act of young single people with chronic, severe disorders and considerable past parasuicide, in a setting of escalating self-harm. Younger age, greater psychiatric morbidity, absence of alcoholism, a history of childhood arson, past and current self-burning were the features specific to self-incineration, which had a 25% mortality rate.
D000275:Adjustment Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology; D002056:Burns / Q000523:psychology*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005390:Fires; D005391:Firesetting Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D012306:Risk; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012652:Self Mutilation / Q000523:psychology*; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*