Gender differences among suspected suicide attempts in a rural tertiary care hospital on South India

Context: Globally, majority of suicide completers are known to be men as opposed to the majority of suicide attempters being women. Men use lethal methods more often than women who rely more on poisoning. Aims: To study the gender differences in the characteristics of the suspected cases of suicidal attempts among the medicolegal cases admitted to a rural tertiary care hospital. Settings and design: Retrospective, explorative-descriptive study of medicolegal case records of patients admitted to a rural tertiary care hospital situated in the southern state of Karnataka, India. Methods and material: Medicolegal case records of suspected cases of suicide attempt (n=829) admitted between the period of January 2013 to December 2015 were analysed. Statistical analysis: Descriptive analysis for frequencies and percentages was done. The Pearson's chi-square test was used to study the gender difference amongst the different variables. Results: Majority of the suspected suicide attempters were male (59.8%), in the age group of 21-30 years (44.8%), married (62.2%), farmers (51.4%), and belonging to lower socioeconomic status (62.7%). For both the genders, the most common mode of attempting suicide was by pesticide poisoning (overall 49.2%) and the most common immediate precipitants were relationship issues (overall 49.5%). Females were significantly younger than males. There was statistically significant association of gender with age group, occupation, mode of attempt, and immediate precipitant. Conclusions: Gender differences among suicide attempters might be reflective of the socio-cultural and regional influences on suicidal behaviour in a rural agrarian setting.