The Motives Behind the Decision for Choosing Self-Immolation as a Method for Suicide

One of the most dramatic and appalling forms of suicidal attempts is Self- burning, also called self- immolation. Iran is one of the countries with the highest rates of self-immolation. As a result, prevention of self- immolation is one of the health priorities in Irans society. We briefly aimed to reveal who attempts self-immolation and investigate the prominent motives for such suicidal attempts. Each patient filled out a two-part questionnaire, the first section of which targeted aspects like demographics, history of mental illness, previous suicidal attempts and the liquid material which was employed in the process, while the latter concerned eight principal reasons under which the patients choose Self-burning. Among the 80 burned patients under investigation in our study, 73 patients (91.3%) were female with a female to male ratio of 10.4: 1. Mean age was 26.7 ± 0.4. Suicidal victims were more likely to be married (52 cases=65%) rather than single (24cases=30%) or separated (4cases=5%). Fifty three patients (66.2%) were illiterate or had low levels of education, and housewives represented the largest group (70 cases=87.5%). Investigation of the patients' history revealed that a minority of patients (n = 17, 21.3%) had a history of mental illness and 78 (97.5%) of cases were reported to have committed Self-burning for the first time. Almost all self burnings were through application of flammable liquids especially petroleum. The major motive for suicide was impulsive suicidal act (n=48, 60%). Moreover, concealing attempt (n=29, 36.3%), attracting attention (n=21, 26.3%) and considering this method as being more successful were other frequents reasons for self-immolation victims who had chosen this method. In majority of cases (n=50, 62.5%), more than one reason had been given by patients for selecting this type of suicide. Seventy cases (87.5%) regret committing self-immolation. Our results are mostly in agreement with previous studies on self-immolators regarding socio-demographic characteristics of patients. However, the motive behind the self-immolation varied widely. The major motive for suicide was impulsive suicidal act. The results of this study support and explain. the necessity of previously discussed multi-disciplinary interventions for preventing self-immolation. (Marzieh Assareh, Mahboube Firouzkouhi Moghaddam, Tayebeh Rakhshani, Mohammad Ali Nikoo, Mohamd Effatpanah, Alireza Rai , Leeba Rezaie. The Motives Behind the Decision for Choosing Self-Immolation as a Method for Suicide. Life Sci J 2013; 10(4): 1610-1614). (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com 212