Prevalence and causes of unintentional poisonings in patients admitted to the 5Azar Hospital of Gorgan, during 2008 – 2015

Background and Aims: Poisoning is a major public health problem. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and causes of unintentional poisonings in Gorgan, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed by data collection from the medical records of 251 unintentional poisonings, admitted to the 5Azar hospital in 2008 – 2015. The data was analyzed by Stata 11 software. Results: Among 800 poisoning cases, 251cases were due to unintentional poisoning, that the majority of them were male (70.9%) and substance and drug abuse were the most common type of unintentional poisoning (54.2%). Opium and its derivatives (44.9%) and also Tramadol (50.1%) were the first agent for substance and drug abuse, respectively. Drug overdose (25.1%) and accidental poisoning (20.3%) were the second and third leading causes of unintentional poisonings, respectively. Cardiac drugs were the most common causes of drug overdose in our study (44.4%). Accidental Poisonings most commonly were occurred as drug ingestion (33.3%).finally, 17 patients (6.8%) died, of which 10(58.8%) were due to substance abuse. Conclusion: Substance abuse was the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in unintentional poisonings. More analytical studies and attentions to groups at risk is recommended in order to prevent and reduce the burden of poisoning in the country.