Abstract:

Parasuicide has become one of the major public health problems worldwide. The WHO is estimated that for every suicide that occurs worldwide, there are up to 20 suicide attempts; however reliable data are not available for most countries. Furthermore, much less is known about attempted suicide across the African continent. Therefore, it was opportune to conduct such project which will provide some valuable statistics on Parasuicide in Botswana. The major objective is to establish the characteristics of Parasuicide at the Princess Marina hospital. Therefore, a retrospective descriptive design (188 patients with Parasuicide) was conducted at the emergency room (January - December 2015). The prevalence of parasuicide is estimated at 0.88%. Overall, females are predominant (79.7%). The age group 21-30 is predominant, mostly students. The factors influencing parasuicide are passional conflict (30.8%), family conflict (20.7%), and social problems (7.9%). Toxic agents (88.2%) were largely used, mostly by females. Among the toxic agents, pharmaceuticals (68.62%) and chemicals (17.55%) were predominant. The overall outcome is largely good (98%). Although patients were widely managed by internal medicine (75.53%), a multidisciplinary approach was established in 10.64% of cases. The study demonstrates that there was no correlation between waiting time, the code of severity and the outcome, as well as the deranged blood and the outcome. In conclusion, Characteristics, and management of Parasuicide were studied. The findings are above described. Further studies may be necessary to elaborate different parameters of parasuicide.

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