Abstract

Objective: On this study, it is aimed to evaluate retrospectively cases that are brought to emergency service because of suicidal poisoning.
Material and Methods: The files that belong to voluntary self-poisoning cases that came or were brought to Farabi Hospital Emergency Medicine Branch of Karadeniz Technical University (KTU), Faculty of Medicine between the dates of 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2001, were studied. During this period, among 302 poisoning hospitalizations, 207 of them which had sufficient information in their file were accepted in the study. Four criteria of the cases were evaluated; demographic situation, time of incoming, type of medication(s) or drug(s) used and it was investigated whether there is any significant relation between those.
Results: The percentage of voluntary self-poisoning cases among total hospitalizations was found to be 1,64 %. 160 of cases (77,3%) were women, 47 of cases(22,7%) were men. Average age was 22.7±8.5 among women, 26.7±9.1 among men. % 60,3 of cases came to emergency service between 12:01-24:00. 144 cases (69,7%) of voluntary self-poisoned had used their own medications/drugs. Approximately the halves of cases were discovered that they had used more than one type medications/drugs. It was detected that analgesic medications were used at most among these medications/drugs.
Conclusion: Voluntary self-poisoning cases are one of continuously met problems in the emergency services. It would be an appropriate approach to emphasize on this subject in emergency medicine trainings.

Key words: Suicidal poisoning, emergency service, retrospective analysis

Article Language: Turkish English