Etiological and demographical characteristics of acute adult poisoning in Ankara, Turkey

1 The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate etiological and demographical characteristics of acute adult poisoning patients during 1 year at a university hospital in Ankara, Turkey. 2 Two-hundred and twenty-eight adults (of which 180 were suicidal poisoning cases) were admitted to the emergency center with acute poisonings. This was 0.7% of all emergency admissions. The female-to-male ratio was 3:1, and the majority of patients (63.6%) were below the age of 25 years. 3 Drugs were the major cause in 75.9% of the cases, followed by inhalation of gases (17.6%), food (2.6%), corrosives (2.2%), pesticides (0.9%), and alcohol (0.9%). Analgesics were the most common cause of drug poisoning (29.7% of all substances). There were no fatalities. 4 It is important to realize that this study is a hospital-based study, and hence it may be considered difficult to draw conclusions for the whole population of Turkey. However, we consider that the reason for such a high ratio of analgesic poisoning is probably due to the habit of extensive analgesic prescribing in Ankara, which is the capital of Turkey.