Medical toxicology experience: Poisoning consultations cases registry in Saudi Ministry of Health -2020 annual report

Abstract

Introduction: Saudi poison control centers provide surveillance data that should be used to determine the magnitude of poisoning exposures and the level of public awareness that is to evaluate control measures. This work aimed to review and assess the characteristics of toxic events received by toxicological information center's hotline all over Saudi Arabia during 2020.

Patients and methods: Data were collected from the poison control centers in Saudi Arabia. Cases of poisonings were studied during the period from 1st January to 31st December 2020.

Results and discussion: The poison control center received 20,513 calls in the year 2020. Most of calls were from Riyadh city (40.9 %) and from public places (92.9 %). Regarding the patients, most of the cases were less than 6 years old and more than half of them were males. The majority of toxic exposures were accidental oral poisoning. About 84 % of patients (84.3 %) called for help within one hour from poisons exposure. Household substances toxic exposure represented about one third of toxic cases. Chemicals and alcohol sanitizers' poisoning were the highest among house hold substances toxicities (39.3 % and 17.7 % respectively of all household substances toxicity). In addition, the most frequently ingested drugs were vitamins poisoning.

Conclusion: Household chemicals represented the highest risk in exposures among children below 6 years. Finally, we recommended widespread awareness of the poisons risk and the importance of poison control that play a great role in time management and saving lives.

Keywords: Epidemiology; Intoxication; Poison center; Poisoning; Saud Arabia.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

Frequency of the received calls according to the cities.

Fig. 2

Frequency of the origin of Consultations Calls.

Fig. 3

Gender of the patients.