Incidence of Intoxication in Karabuk (Turkey) in 2013

Aims: The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze the rate and characteristics of intoxications who were admitted to our intensive care unit (ICU).
Study Design: This is a retrospective study.
Place and Duration of Study: Department of Medical ICU, Karabük Training and Research Hospital, between January 1 st and December 31 th, in 2013.
Method: The study was conducted on 166 intoxicated patients who admitted to the Medical ICU in study time. Data were collected from the patients medical records. The demographic features, causes of intoxications, clinical symptoms, the mean stay in the ICU,and outcomes were evaluated.
Results: The total number of patients followed in our ICU during this period were 2180, and 166 (7.61%) of them were acute intoxications. The female-to-male ratio was 1.6:1. Mean ages of female and male patients were 33.94±14.49 years and 38.13±17.31 years, respectively. The mean stay in the ICU was 2.43±0.89 days. Drugs were found to be the primary cause (49.40%) of intoxications, and analgesics (24.39%) were the most frequent causative agents.Suicidal attempts were present in 85 patients (49 female, 36 male), and most of them were between 17-34 years (68.23%). The other common causes of intoxications were carbonmonoxide (24.70%) and mushroom (19.28%).
Conclusion: Intoxications were more frequent in female and drugs were the most common cause. Suicidal attempts were 51.20% of all intoxications. The intoxications of carbonmonoxide and mushroom were more common in our province than in other parts of Turkey.