The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7239 p333
8 March 2003

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  OFT report
  Supermarket pharmacy
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  Remuneration
  Self-injury
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Letters to the Editor

Self-injury

How pharmacists can help manage patients who self-harm

From "A postgraduate"

Readers may not know that 1 March was National Self Injury Awareness day. I am writing as an individual member of a self-injury campaign group, because I would like to point out the ways in which pharmacists can help (or sometimes hinder) patients such as myself.

The Mental Health Foundation estimates that almost half a million people in the United Kingdom self injure. The usual methods are cutting, burning and bruising.

A common misapprehension among health professionals is that this is an attention-seeking behaviour but, in fact, most people keep their injuries a secret, and even those who are receiving psychiatric help are reluctant to visit general practitioners or accident and emergency department with self-inflicted injuries because of the negative reactions sometimes encountered there.

Unfortunately this leads to injuries going untreated, since the type of first aid supplies needed for self-care, such as butterfly sutures and especially dressings for large burns, are not easily obtained. This is where local community pharmacists could help.

Clearly one would not wish to encourage the public not to get serious injuries examined. But if first aid supplies were kept behind the counter, and if pharmacists could build up a trusting relationship with self-injuring patients (who have of course watched professionals treating injuries many times and know how to do it) then not only would much hassle be saved, but patients might then feel able to ask for advice about psychiatric medications, infection and safety issues, and even help in the event of an overdose.

Psychiatric patients who self-injure represent a significant section of the community who have a great reluctance to see doctors, and could benefit enormously if pharmacists had a clear idea of how to manage them.

"A Postgraduate"
297/27

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