Northern Ireland Registry of Deliberate Self-Harm: Western area. Annual report 2009.

This is the third report from the Northern Ireland Registry of Deliberate Self-Harm since its pilot stage in 2007. The NI Registry is part of the Northern Ireland Suicide Prevention Strategy „Protect Life – A Shared Vision‟. The NI Registry is a collaboration with the National Registry of Deliberate Self-harm in the Republic of Ireland which has been operating since 2000. Using the same methodology as the Registry in the Republic of Ireland, the Western Registry extracts and collates anonymised data from existing records of self-harm attendances at the three Accident and Emergency (A&E)/Urgent Care departments in the Western area. This report represents data obtained over the 2009 calendar year. The extent of self-harm outlined in this report highlights the challenges faced by health services in responding to this issue. The report also highlights some issues that contribute to self-harming behaviour that may require attention by wider society. Method of self-harm: In many self-harm attendances more than one method of self-harm was used. In 2009, and as seen in 2007-08, drug overdose was the predominant method of self-harm particularly among females, and was used in 73.9% of all self-harm episodes. Self-cutting was the second most common form of self-harm, used in 17.2% of all self-harm episodes. Almost one in ten attendances involved attempted drowning or attempted hanging, methods which often indicate a high degree of suicidal intent. Alcohol: Alcohol, whilst rare as a main method of self-harm, was involved in 56.3% of all episodes. This was a decrease of 17.8% compared to 2008 (68.5%). Alcohol was more likely to be involved in cases of self-harm among males (61.6%) than females (52.0%). This is 8.3% and 6.4% lower respectively than the findings in 2007 and 2008. When a patient is heavily intoxicated it is very difficult for staff to carry out an assessment of their mental state