Does Body Mass Index Influences the Method Opted for Suicide? Pandey Rajneesh Kumar1, Samadder Sujeet Kumar2,* 1Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal 2Assistant Professor, Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Mahaveer Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal *Corresponding Author: Sujeet Kumar Samadder, Assistant Professor, Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Mahaveer Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Email ID- drsujeet2522@gmail.com, Mobile No.-8319142407
Online published on 7 May, 2019. 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). Top Keywords Body Mass Index, Suicide, Hanging, Poisoning, Road traffic accident. Top |