Assessment of prevalence and mortality incidences due to poisoning in a South Indian tertiary care teaching hospital

Abstract

WHO reports estimate poisoning as one of the most common causes of increased morbidity and mortality rate world-wide. Various agents such as pesticides, drugs have been used for intentional and accidental poisoning in different countries. In the Indian scenario, pesticides are the most commonly used poisoning agents. To assess the prevalence and mortality incidence rate due to various poisoning agents a retrospective and prospective study conducted over a period of nine months in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Retrospective data of poisoning cases was collected from the medical records section and the prospective data of poisoning cases was collected from the emergency and causality departments. A total of 1045 poisoning related admissions were identified during the period January 2005 to September 2008. Among them, 68.40% of cases were due to intentional poisoning and 31.60% were due to accidental poisoning. Of the poisoning related admissions, 84.4% of patients recovered, whereas in 7.6% of cases condition did not improve. Mortality rate was observed 4%. Intentional poisoning was observed more in male population (60.2%) in the age group of 18-29 years. Accidental poisoning was seen more in children in the age group of 1-3 years. Incidence of overall poisoning cases were high due to pesticides (39.5%) followed by medicines (26.1%), household products (22.1%), environmental poisoning (12.1%) and heavy metals (0.2%). It was observed that availability of centralised poison information centre and treatment protocols will improvise poison management practices in tertiary care hospitals by the clinicians.

Keywords: Drugs; house hold products; incidence; pesticide; poisoning agent; prevalence.

Fig. 1

Incidences of intentional and accidental poisoning 68.42%: Intentional poisoning (715 cases); 31.58%: Accidental poisoning (330 cases)

Fig. 2

Agents commonly used for poisoning. Pesticides: 39.5%, Medicines: 26.1%, House hold products: 22.1%, Environmental: 12.1%, Heavy metals: 0.2%

Fig. 3

Age distribution of total poisoning cases Total number of cases: 1045, X axis= Age distribution, Y axis = Number of poisoning cases

Fig. 4

Season wise distribution of poisoning cases Total cases: 1045, Winter: 275 cases, Summer: 295 cases, Rainy: 240 cases, Spring: 235 cases

Fig. 5

Percentage wise distribution of environmental poisoning cases Snake bite: 193 cases (Male= 144, Female= 49), Scorpian bite: 6 cases (Male= 4, Female= 02), Stings: 15 cases (Male= 6, Female= 9), Insect bite: 06 Cases (Male= 05, Female=01)