Evaluation of Poisoning Cases Hospitalized to Intensive Care Unit

Aim: Acute poisoning is less frequent and important diagnosis in emergency departments (ED). Aim of the study is to evaluate demographic and clinical properties of the patients diagnosed with poisining in ED and then hospitalized in intensive care unit (ICU). Material and Methods: Patients who were diagnosed with intoxication in ED and hospitalized to ICU between January 2009 and June 2015 were recorded according to the ED protocol book, forensic reports, were retrospectively scanned using the intensive care follow-up book and hospital software system. Data were recorded and statistics were made with SPSS 16.0. Results: A total of 70 patients were hospitalized to ICU and 74.3% of patients were women (n = 52). 85,8% (n=60) of patients were drug poisoning while the remaining 14.2% (n = 10) were alcohol, street drugs (bonzai, marijuana, ecstasia), mushroom, pesticide. 81.4% (n = 57) of the patients diagnosed within toxication for suicide, 8,6% (n = 6) for unintentional and 10% (n = 7) for pleasure. The rate of drug use in suicidal intoxications was 96.5% (n = 55) and the most (76%) (n = 42) and central nervous system (CNS) drugs were used. When the complaints of the patients were grouped, CNS related complaints were the most common (75.7%) and the gastrointestinal (GIS) complaints (24.3%) were the second. Conclusion: Significant proportion of the patients diagnosed with poisoning were drug intoxications. Large proportion of these drugs were included in the group of CNS medications, poisoning cases occurred in the female gender more and more for suicidal purposes