Nasreen Begum Abdul Aziz, Senthil Kumar Shakthivel, Madhuri Karanam
BACKGROUND
Poison is a substance that causes damage or injury to the body and endangers one's life due to its exposure by means of ingestion, inhalation or contact. Acute poisoning cases form one of the commonest causes of emergency hospital admissions. The aim of our study is to study the epidemiological and pattern of reported poisoning cases in a tertiary care hospital in Kanchipuram district. It is a retrospective study in SSSMC and RI, a tertiary healthcare centre conducted for 4 yrs.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
245 poisoning cases from rural areas admitted in SSSMC and RI, a tertiary healthcare centre. The details of patient’s demography such as age, gender, type of poison, occupation and provoking factor for poisoning were documented and analysed.
RESULTS
Out of 245 cases, 118 were males and 127 were females, OPC poisoning and drug overdose were almost equal. Majority of the age group who resorted to self-poisoning were 18-30 yrs. The risk factor most common being in males is love failure and females being student’s underperformance. In this study, the patients are mostly farmers and a few were jobless also. In females, majority were homemakers and farmland workers.
CONCLUSION
Our hospital especially renders services to the rural people mostly with low socioeconomic and low education status. The mortality and morbidity due to poisoning will be reduced by conducting educational programs and providing regular counselling to destress and tackle the risk factors and provide poison information service to the needy people.
