CASES OF ACUTE POISONING PRESENTING IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Objective: Acute poisoning is one of the most common reason of hospitalization. Chemicals, medicines and environmental agents are the main causes of poisoning worldwide. Acute poisoning cases are responsible for significant morbidity and mortality, which has drawn the world attention. The type of poison used depends on various factors like the geographical area, social, financial and educational status etc. Thereby purpose of current study was to access risk factors, survival and mortality of acute poisoning cases presented at Sheikh Zayed Hospital Rahim Yar Khan. Methodology: This is hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study of 155 patients admitted in medical emergency due to acute poisoning. Study duration was 6 months from May 2019-October 2019. Patient of either gender with age above 14 were included by Non-probability convenient sampling method. Demographics, nature of poison and clinical profile (mode of poisoning, clinical presentation and mortality rate) were studied. The collected data was presented as frequency and percentages. Results: Among 155 enrolled patients, there were 65 (41.9%) males and 90 (58.1%) females. The minimum age of patient was 15 years with mean age of 28.52±9.23 years. Majority 44.5% (69) of the patients were in age group of 15-25 years. We found that majority of the patients 21.2% (n=33) presented with Paraphenylene diamine (kala pathar) followed by 18% (28) patients with organophosphates and 10.3% (16) patients with Aluminum phosphide, 10.3% (16) with benzodiazepine, 10.3% (16) with Methanol (alcohol) and in 10.9% (17) patients the cause of poisoning was unknown. Survival and mortality rates in our study were 76.1% and 23.9% respectively. Conclusion: Acute poisoning is one of the most frequent medical emergency. These patients needs multidisciplinary approach, ICU care, and good knowledge of toxicology of attending doctor. Most of our patients were young. The commonest poison ingested was with Paraphenylene diamine (kala pathar) followed by organophosphates, Aluminum phosphide, benzodiazepine and Methanol (alcohol). Suicidal intention was the main reason for acute poisoning