Demographical, aetiological and clinical characteristics of poisonings in Mersin, Turkey

Abstract

<jats:p> Background: As acute poisoning continues to be an important public health problem, and represents a frequent cause of admission in emergency departments, there is a constant need to have up to date information about it. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the demographical, aetiological and clinical characteristics of acute poisonings who were admitted to a university hospital in the south part of Turkey. Methods: The data of 195 acute poisoning patients who were admitted to the Emergency Department of Mersin University were retrospectively studied. Results: Most poisonings occurred in the age range 0–6 years (57.5%) for children and 17–25 year (46.7%) for adults. The overall female to male ratio was 1.26. Drugs were the most common cause of poisonings (55.4%). Among the drug poisonings, psychotropics (41.7%) were the most frequent agent, followed by analgesics (20.4%). 67.7% of the cases presented to the emergency department within 3 hours of poisoning and the procedures for elimination of poison were performed in most of them. The clinical status of the patients on arrival was generally good. 69.2% of the patients were hospitalized. The mean duration of hospitalization was 2.49±2.8 days. 41.8% of the suicidal cases had a history of psychiatric disorders; 92.8% of the patients were discharged home after toxicological treatment; 2.6% of the cases died. Conclusion: Further studies are necessary to collect more data and these data will be helpful not only for determining risk factors of acute poisonings but also for developing education and prevention programmes. </jats:p>

A retrospective analysis of acute poisoning during pregnancy

“…According to the results of quite a few epidemiologic studies conducted in our country, the annual poisoning incidence was determined as 0.8-5% (5)(6)(7)(8). So the rate of 1.1% that we found in this study performed at a university hospital in the province of Van, located in the most eastern part of Turkey, is in accordance with the literature findings.…”

Intoxicações exógenas em crianças menores de seis anos atendidas em hospitais da região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro

“…[4][5][6]17,18 Em relação à idade, notou-se uma variação significante com as intoxicações por medicamentos aumentando com a idade enquanto decresceu a participação dos produtos químicos de uso doméstico. Não existem maiores evidências de que a redução de 8% no número total de casos anuais de intoxicações, reflexo da diminuição em 1/4 das intoxicações por produtos químicos de uso doméstico, possa ser atribuída a qualquer tipo de ação de saúde pública especificamente orientada para tal problema no período estudado.…”

Evaluation of intoxicated patients hospitalized in a newly-opened level two pediatric intensive care unit

“…In the study of Özayar et al (12), it was reported similarly that antidepressants were in the first order among drug intoxications with a rate of 31.9% and this was followed by analgesics with a rate of 17.02%. When the literature was examined, it was found that analgesics in some studies and antidepressants in some others were in the first order (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). In contrast to these studies, the rate of antibiotic intoxication was also found to be subtantially high in our study.…”