Abstract:
Introduction: With the widespread availability of a vast number of chemicals and drugs, acute poisoning
is a common medical emergency worldwide. In spite of the success of interventions to prevent toxic
ingestions, acute poisoning continues to be an important public health problem. Because of weak regulations and limited health care services in developing countries, adverse outcomes from poisoning are
more prevalent than in the developed world. Due to the limited Ethiopian literature on this topic, the primary objective of this study was to evaluate and report poisoning cases, their management and outcome
in northwest Ethiopia.
Methods:This is a retrospective study of all poisoning cases admitted and managed in the emergency
centres of Gondar Teaching Referral Hospital and Metema and Debark district hospitals, from
September 2010 to December 2014. Data was collected through retrospective chart review of patients
who were admitted due to poisoning.
Results:There were 543 registered poisoning cases listed in the registry during the study period, of which
344 cases (63.4%) had complete data and were included in the final analysis. There were 48,619 emergency centre visits during the study period, with poisoning cases accounting for 1.1%. Females (60%) were
predominant among intentional as well as unintentional poisoning cases. Patients between 15 and
24 years of age accounted for 55% of the cases. Patients poisoned with organophosphate and bleaching
agents accounted for 35% and 25%, respectively. Among the poisoning patients, 74% were treated with
decontamination, while those exposed to organophosphate were treated with atropine 45.5% (55/121)
of the time.
Discussion:Young females comprise a group at increased risk for suicidal poisonings. As a developing
nation, pesticide and bleaching agents remain a significant cause of acute poisonings in Ethiopia.
Intentional poisoning remains the most significant identified cause of poisoning overall.
2017 African Federation for Emergency Medicine. Publishing services provided by Elsevier B.V. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)