Zeitschrift für klinische Toxikologie
Offener Zugang
ISSN: 2161-0495
ISSN: 2161-0495
Belayneh Dessie Kassa*, Berhanu Tesfaye
Introduction: Due to the abundance of drugs and chemicals, poisoning has become a common medical emergency that affects people worldwide. Even though it has been identified that this issue is a serious community health concern in Ethiopia, the exact extent of this problem has not yet been correctly surveyed.
Objective: This study aimed to analyze the factors that influence the outcome of adult patients with poisoning at a tertiary care center.
Materials and methods: A 5-year institution-based cross-sectional study was done. Data were gathered by retrospective chart review using structured questionnaires. The data were entered into version 26 of the SPSS software program after coding and cleaning for further analysis. Descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis, and bivariate analysis were performed to evaluate the effects of various factors on the outcome of the study. The odd ratio was used to estimate the relative risk of poisoning. P values below 0.05 were considered significant.
Results: The study revealed that the death and discharge rates were 13.7% and 86.3%, respectively. Among the various factors that were analyzed, being from an urban area was associated with the likelihood of being discharged (p=0.024). Intubated patients were also less likely to be discharged, which means the need for intubation was a strong predictor of death (p=0.033).
Conclusion: This study revealed that the death rate in our study was very extreme when brought into comparison with the results of previous studies. Urban origin and the need for intubation were independent determinants of the outcome.