Sa Azin, A Shahidzadeh Mahani , M Abadi, S Omidvari, A Montazeri,
Volume 4, Issue 2 (9-2008)
Abstract
Background & Objectives: Self-poisoning is one of the oldest and most common forms of self-harm and a frequent incident of referring to hospital poisoning wards. Especially for cases involving suicidal intention, incidence and secular trends are closely related to the types of drugs and substances available.
Methods: This research was conducted in 2004 to examine the epidemiology of attempted suicide by poisoning and the total case load of hospital poisoning wards. The study involved 723 poisoning cases in major referral hospitals located in cities of Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Mashad, and Esfahan.
Results: Seventy-six percent of the cases were identified as suicide attempts the most common substances used for this purpose were medications (80.9%), chemical poisons (10.7%), psychotropic substances (5.1%), and other chemicals such as detergents and bleaching agents (3.2%). Notably, about a third of the cases were due to benzodiazepine ingestion. The most common cause of accidental poisoning was psychotropic substance overdose (44.2%), predominantly opioids.
Conclusions: Considering the prevalent use of medications and psychotropic agents in suicide attempts and the relatively high proportion of suicide cases in hospital poisoning wards indicating strategies for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of this common and urgent problem.
