Background: Suicide is one of the main causes of death in recent years, and suicidal conduct is a growing public health issue, establishing the necessity to characterize and report how these patients self-harm through intoxication. Objectives: To describe and analyze the current data regarding the characterization, epidemiological profile and methodologies used in suicidal patients that self-harm through intoxication, as well as establish possible risk factors for this type of practices, identify limitations in the data of the case reports and thus, guide strategies that prevent fatal or adverse health outcomes through an observational descriptive study with the analysis of secondary data. Methodology: We conducted an analytical, retrospective study using secondary data. The database was provided by Cisproquim, integrating records of suicide attempts by poisoning from 2019 to 2024. All statistical analyses were performed in RStudio. Results: Young adulthood is the most affected population group. There is an intrinsic relation between sex and the severity of the case, stating a preponderance of women attempting suicide through intoxication. Most of the cases were registered in urban zones. Antioquia is the department with the most cases. Acetaminophen was the most frequently used medication for suicidal purposes. Conclusion: Our study allowed us to identify multiple risk factors related to suicide attempts through intoxication and the multiple areas of action available to establish routes to prevent, diagnose, and timely treat suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.
Castillo-Moreno et al. (Sun,) studied this question.