Pattern of Acute Poisoning among Patients Admitted to Tanta Poison Control Center during 2012

Background: Acute poisoning remains a major publichealth problem and represents a frequent cause of admission in emergency units, especially in developing countries. Many studies must be focused on the different patterns of acute poisoning in patients admitted to poison control centers. So, the aim of this study is to characterize the poisoning cases admitted to poison control center, Tanta University Emergency Hospital, Egypt.
Study design: All admitted acutely poisoned patients from January to December 2012 were evaluated retrospectively. Data of socio-demographic characteristics, time of admission, circumstances of poisoning, agents, route of exposure and mortality rate were collected from medical records of the hospital. During this period, 1104 patients were admitted.
Results: Of the admitted patients, 57.1% were females and 42.9% were males. The majority (31.2%) of cases were in the age group between 1-10 years. Most poisonings were accidental (55.2%) while suicidal attempts were 44.8%. Females were 76.2% of all suicidal poisoning while males were 58.5% of all accidental poisoning. The most important agents used were therapeutic drugs (32.3%) especially sedatives and hypnotics (12.6%) followed by analgesics (9.24%) and CVS drugs (8.96%). Pesticides were the second common agents used (28.6%) of which organophosphates were the commonest (67.7%). Mortality rate was 0.5% which was due to suicidal attempts by pesticides.
Conclusion: The study concluded that high rate of acute poisoning was between patients of age group between 1-10 years. Females were of high suicidal attempts than males, while males were predominant in accidental poisoning. The most commonly substances included are drugs and pesticides. Prevention strategies should be directed towards limiting access to the implicated substances involved in both accidental and suicidal poisoning.