• Levent Avsarogullari, Vesile Senol, Okhan Akdur, Aynur Akin, Polat Durukan, and Seda Ozkan.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Erciyes University Medical School, Kayseri, Turkey.
• J Pak Med Assoc. 2012 Feb 1;62(2):129-33.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the etiologic and demographic characteristics of acute adult poisoning cases and to obtain up-to-date information on acute poisonings.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted to evaluate 1254 adults who presented with acute poisoning to the Emergency Department of our tertiary care university hospital in central Turkey from January 2007 to December 2009. The data extracted from each chart related to age, gender, marital status, agent involved in the poisoning, season of event, route of poisoning, time between ingestion or exposure and arrival at the casualty ward, mechanism of toxic exposure (unintentional or intentional), level of consciousness, length of stay in the ward, and outcome.ResultsAcute poisonings comprised 1.40% of Emergency Department patients; 65% were female, while 47% were between the ages of 16 and 25 years. Medicinal drugs were the most common cause of poisonings (68%), followed by gases (9.5%). Antidepressants were the most frequent drug ingested (18%), followed by analgesics (16%). Intentional poisonings constituted the majority of cases (78%). Most suicide attempts were made by women (68%) and majority of the patients were married (57%). Twenty patients (1.6%) died during their hospital stay, with organophosphate pesticides being the most common agent (n = 8) involved in fatal poisonings.ConclusionPharmaceutical agents, carbon monoxide and pesticides are the three most common poisoning agents. Deliberate self-poisoning is common in adults in the area of the study; the risk being highest in females and younger adults. These up-to-date data provide important information on the characteristics of acute poisonings and can guide activities such as professional training, preventive measures, community education and new research.

18 keywords...

hide…