Comparative trends of accidental to intentional mortalities over a one-year period at a tertiary care centre

Abstract

Background: The trends of deaths due to unnatural incidents are on the rise each year throughout the world, including India. Incremental trends have been observed in all mortalities throughout the country. Although all these mortalities seem preventable, yet not much has been achieved over the years. Intentional mortalities are yet more preventable as compared to non intentional ones. The trends of unnatural deaths were observed at a tertiary care centre of the capital city of Rajasthan to determine the comparative magnitude of such fatalities to predict possible reasons for them.Methods: An observational study was carried out for a one year period (2013-14) at the Department of Forensic Medicine of an apex institution of the capital metropolitan city to determine the comparative trends of accidental to suicidal and homicidal deaths amongst the medico-legal autopsies carried out over the study period. The results were analysed to look into the probable reasons for these preventable deaths.Results: Accidental fatalities contributed maximally followed by suicides and homicides. All types of unnatural deaths were more commonly observed in young adult male population. Road accidents were the major offenders followed by thermal injuries and falls. Intentional fatalities due to self harm or other human beings shared a considerable burden among unexpected mortalities over the study region.Conclusions: Majority of the reported fatalities were preventable deaths occurring amongst the active and productive population and hence, it is of utmost importance to analyse such deaths to suggest remedial measures bring down the toll of such causalities.

Profile of autopsy cases in central level hospital of Nepal. A retrospective study of two years

“…Bansude et al in their study observed cause of death by trauma is 38.09%, burn injury 26.73%, Asphyxia 9.8% and poisoning was 21.21%, 19 where the death due to trauma is consistent with the current study. Sharma et al found death due to burn injury as a cause of death was 7%, hanging is 5%, 20 which differs from the current study as death due to hanging cases are higher in number than those due to injury cases.…”

Prevalence and Epidemiological Profile of Medico-legal Cases of Suicidal Autopsy at a Tertiary Care Hospital of Central Nepal

“…20 differs from the current study as death due to hanging cases are higher in number than those due to injury cases. 22 Romana Malik et al, in their study, reported that the causes of death were distributed as follows: 40% due to Road Traffic Accidents (RTA), 31% from blunt injuries, 19% from sharp injuries, 2% from sexual assault, 4% from poisoning, and 4% from firearm cases. 19 In a study conducted in Ethiopia by Solano, the causes of death in forensic science were found to be due to strangulation (7.5%), suffocation (0.8%), others (0.5%), hanging (88%), poisoning (10%), bullet (0.7%), drowning (8.5%), electric current injury, and burn (0.8%).…”