Epidemiological and clinical status of patients with scorpion sting: emergency department of Sina hospital in Tabriz-Iran

Objective: Scorpion is one of the world’s most venomous arthropods and every year many people are bitten by it. In Iran, scorpion sting is a common health issue. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological and clinical status of patients with scorpion sting in the emergency department of Sina hospital in 2014. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, all patients with a history of scorpion sting during 2014 in the emergency department of Sina hospital in Tabriz entered the study. Required information such as sex, age, location and time of the sting, the patient’s symptoms, etc were extracted from the medical records. These findings were analyzed using SPSS version 15. Results: Based on our results, 47.2% of patients were male. The mean ± SD of their age was 35.63 ± 18.87. Of 176 patients, 83% lived in urban areas, 87% of scorpion sting cases occurred in houses, and 81.3% of stings were done by yellow scorpion. Most of the bites were in upper extremities (47.2%). In evaluation of symptoms and signs of patients, 89.8% had pain, 48.8% had local erythema and redness, 21% had inflation of sting position and 0.6% had pulmonary symptoms. Conclusion: Scorpion stings are more common in young people as they are more active. Scorpion stings occur more frequently during the night and in the summer. In our study, most of scorpion stings occurred in houses. Keywords: Epidemiology, Scorpions, Bites and Stings, Arthropod