Ingestion of foreign objects as a means of nonlethal self-injury.

The focus of this practice review is to understand the precursors, correlates, and treatment of self-injury by ingestion of foreign objects among patients in inpatient mental health facilities. These cases exhibited pervasive psychopathology of early onset, histories of severe personality disorder, and trauma. The cases seemingly presented a higher incidence of medical complications than is reported in the literature, and treatment outcomes varied from modest-to-good success.