How much self-poisoning attempts are visible in Iran?

BACKGROUND: Stigma of suicide attempt (SA) results in not asking friends and relatives for help. Others’ awareness of an individual’s SA sometimes can solve his/her problems and reduce rates of SA. This study is intended to examine the degree of SA visibility through deliberate self-poisoning (DSP), which is the most common method of SA in Iran. METHODS: In order to study visibility, all individuals who had attempted to suicide by DSP and had been referred to the western Iran poisoning center during April-June, 2016 were entered to the study. A female and a male interviewer experienced in role-playing were recruited to interview clients, each with clients of their own gender, in order to increase compliance and information accuracy. Multivariate Poisson Regression was used to identify visibility determinants. RESULTS: Among 100 subjects interviewed, 10 denied SA. Regardless of those denying SA, self-poisoning visibility factor (SVF) was 26.6% (21.7-31.5) which decreased to 23.9% (19.7-28.1) after considering those individuals who denied SA. The highest values of SVF were observed in subjects poisoned by toxins, alcohol and illegal drugs, respectively. In the multivariate model, the value of SVF increased with an increase in age (IRR=1.03, 95% CI: 1.02-1.04), having history of SA (IRR=1.18, 95% CI: 1.07-1.30), and being married (IRR=1.70, 95% CI: 1.05-1.29). CONCLUSIONS: Lower values of SVF of DSP indicate that individuals committing suicide do not ask others for help and saying their SA intents. The higher the degree of visibility, the lower the rates of committing and repeating SAs. To increase the visibility of SA, therefore, the one way is to prevent and reduce SA repetition.