Prospective assessment of patterns, severity and clinical outcome of Indian poisoning incidents

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the patterns, severity and clinical outcome of poisoning incidents. A prospective assessment was conducted over a period of 1 year in tertiary-care teaching hospitals. Glasgow coma scale (GCS), poisoning severity score (PSS), and snake bite severity score (SSS) were used to predict the severity of poisoning, and then compared to the clinical outcome. The study involved 212 patients with a mean age of 26.7±12.7 years. Pesticides were found to be the most common poisoning agents. The incidents of intentional poisoning (n=178) were higher than accidental (n=34) poisoning. Poisoning incidents were higher in male population (n=132) compared to female population (n=80). The poisoning incidents were predominantly higher among literates (n=155). The poisoning incidents were higher in rural areas (n=129), followed by urban (n=53) and semi-urban (n=30) areas. The poisoning incidents were highest in the middle class population (n=108), followed by poor class (n=101) and rich class (n=3) population. A majority of patients whose severity of illness was predicted to be mild to moderate recovered from the poisoning. In contrast, patients whose illness was predicted to be severe were either discharged with severe morbidity or deceased. There was a moderate correlation between GCS and PSS scoring systems (r=0.51, p<0.001).