The pre-hospital analysis of intentional taking poison in Gangwon-do

¹Department of Emergency Medicine, Kangwon National University Hospital, Chuncheon, Korea
²Department of Emergency Medicine, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
³Department of Radiology, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
⁴Department of Internal Medicine, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
⁵Department of Anesthesiology, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea
⁶Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea

Correspondence

Taek Geun Ohk ,Tel: 033-258-2438, Fax: 033-258-2451, Email: otgotg11@gmail.com,

Received: June 28, 2019; Revised: October 22, 2019 Accepted: November 11, 2019. Published online: February 28, 2020.

ABSTRACT

Objective:
This study examined the characteristics of the patients taking poison intentionally at the pre-hospital stage to prevent it at the community level.
Method:
We retrospectively reviewed the data that had been reported to fire stations from January 2017 to December 2018. This data included sex, age, occupation, the season of the year, time, place, methods, alcohol ingestion, transferred to the hospital or not, and we examined how taking poison had an effect on the suicide success rate.
Results:
The subjects were a total of 1,356 patients who had been reported to fire stations due to intentionally taking poison. Forty-five point five percent of them were male, and 54.5% were female. The most common method of intentional taking poison was sedatives (58.3%), followed by pesticides (24.6%), antidepressants (19.0%), and other methods (12.6%). The home place was preferred more than any other places. The suicide success rate was 2.1% in males and 1.4% in females. For the age groups, those patients 40-64 years old tried taking poison much more than the other age groups. In the aspect of the season of the year, summer was the highest season for taking poison, at 30.3%. The daytime was more preferred than the night time.
Conclusion:
In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of the pre-hospital intentional poisoning cases according to gender, age, occupation, season of the year, time, and between the transferred and the untransferred groups. Efforts should be made in cooperation with the community to prevent suicide attempts by intentionally taking poison.

Key words: Emergency medical services; Poisoning; Treatment refusal