ABSTRACT

The aim of this study w as 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.