Acute drug poisonings in Eskisehir, Turkey: A retrospective study [Eskişehirde akut i·laç zehirlenmeleri: Retrospektif bir çahşma]

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterize acute drug-poisoning cases admitted to the Adult Emergency Service of ESOGU Medicine Faculty Hospital, Turkey. All acute drug-poisoning cases admitted to the emergency service from January 2003 to December 2009 were evaluated retrospectively. For this purpose; age, gender, admission date, vital signs, symptoms, the types of drugs used, purpose of drug intake, alcohol co-ingestion, treatment procedures and patient outcomes were recorded. According to the results, 68.6% of cases was female and 31.4% was male. The mean age of all cases was 28.16+11.74, being 27.26+10.48 in women and 32.16+13.53 in men. The purposes of drug intake were found as; 84.90% for suicidal attempts, 9.70% for treatment purposes 4 30% for accidental drug poisonings and 1.20% for drug abuse. Psychoactive drugs were the most common drugs causing acute drug-poisoning events while analgesics were the secondary causative drug group. Central nervous system symptoms were the major symptoms observed which were followed by gastrointestinal symptoms. 64.60% of the cases stayed at least one day in the hospital. Patient outcomes were as follows: 98.7% discharge with full recovery, 0.7% recovery with sequel related to intoxication and 0.6% resulted in death.