ABSTRACT
People who deliberately harm themselves were formerly usually described as having attempted suicide. As it became clear that only a small proportion said they wanted to die, or had in fact endangered their lives by their behaviour, this term was generally abandoned as unsatisfactory. Parasuicide is used both for the act, and for the actor. Parasui-cides, therefore, include people who intended to commit suicide but failed; people who did not intend to die but deliberately poisoned or injured themselves for some other reason; and people who ‘by accident’ took a harmful amount of a substance or injured themselves (drug experimenter, confused old person, for instance). Parasuicides consult their general practitioners more frequently than does the general population; they tend to be well known and recognised as having emotional difficulties for which psychotropic drugs are prescribed. Although about a third of parasuicides coming to hospital are likely to have had some previous contact with a psychiatrist.
