Drug intoxications in the emergency department: Our 1-year experience

Drug intoxication (DRI), which occurs due to accidental or suicidal use of high doses of drugs, has a high mortality and morbidity rate. emergency departments of hospitals are the units where these patients first come to the hospital, where the first interventions are performed and where the mortality rate is higher than other departments. therefore, DRI is a more important health problem for the emergency department (ED) than other departments of hospitals. In this study, we aimed to retrospectively investigate the demographic characteristics, drugs used and clinical course of patients admitted to the ED of our hospital with the diagnosis of DRI.

Patients admitted to the ED of Malatya Training and Research Hospital with the diagnosis of DRI were retrospectively screened from the hospital database. The patients' demographic characteristics, medications and clinical conditions were recorded. Patients over the age of 18 years who were diagnosed with DRI and whose medicationuse was identified were included in this study. Patients under the of 18 and those poisoned by other substances such as alcohol, illegal chemicals, or agricultural pesticides were excluded.

Demographic characteristics, type of intoxication and clinical course of the patients included in the study are shown in Table 1. In 2023, 282 patients were admitted to the emergency department of our hospital with the diagnosis of DRI. Of these, 60% were women and 40% were men (n=170, n=112, respectively) and there was no statistically significant difference between the numbers of men and women (p=0.156). Fifteen percent of the women were over 50 years of age and 85% were under 50 years of age. this ratio was 55% to 45% in men. there was no statistically significant difference in the age distribution between men and women (p=0.246, p=0.260, respectively), (Table 1). 77% of the patients used overdose drugs for suicidal purposes and 23% accidentally (n=217, n=65, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference in the type of DRI, total number of males and females and age distribution (p=0.26). While 60% of the patients were hospitalized, 25% were admitted to intensive care unit and 35% to service (n=70, n=100, respectively). There were statistically significantly more patients admitted to service (p=0.03).

The results of our study show that the number of female patients admitted to the ED of our hospital with the diagnosis of DRI, patients under 50 years of age and suicidal use are higher, the most commonly used drugs in these patients are NSAIDs, SSRIs and antipyschotics as a drug group and drugs used in psychiatric disorders. Our study has shown that frequently used and easily accessible drugs are more likely to be abused, and that questioning such drugs, especially in patients presenting to the emergency service with drug intoxication in this region, may be valuable for diagnosis and treatment.