Study of Intentional self harm in children - A prospective observational study

Children of age 10 to 18 years with history of poisoning /self- harm  will be interviewed and later after interviewing, the cases with intentional self-harm will be taken up for the study, The patients will be recruited from children admitted in PICU & Wards under Department of Pediatrics, KMC Manipal. Ascent from the child along with informed consent from the parent would be taken, Detailed Socio-demographic history will be taken and possible risk factors in household, school, family and children which led to intentional self-harm will be noted. General physical examination and relevant systemic examination will be noted. The clinical examination will be done within 72 hours of admission. Relevant laboratory investigations will be done to look for organ damage• Outcomes of intentional self-harm in the form of days of PICU stay, mechanical ventilation, neuro-deficits and death, survival will be noted. Descriptive statistics will be recorded to produce tabulated percentages, mean , median & range of variables. Chi square test, Fisher Exact test & Mann Whitney test maybe used to test the association/comparison among categorical variables. Binary logistic regression will be used to study the association between time of presentation & age, gender, associated morbidity.