Eight-year epidemiological study for drug poisoning in Qassim, Saudi Arabia, 2008–2015

Abstract

Literature reported drug poisoning as a major cause for visiting emergency departments, with various rates of occurrences across countries, regions, socioeconomic status, and cultures. Therefore, this study was conducted in Qassim to describe the sociodemographic patterns of acute drug poisoning as well as the most common drugs involved. A retrospective method of data collection was used employing medical record review for drug poisoning cases that occurred in the Qassim region during the 8 years from January 2008 to December 2015. Data was collected using a standardized, validated data collection sheet. The study failed to reveal any pattern (either decreasing or increasing) in the number of poisoning cases over time. Most cases (56.2%) of drug poisoning were accidental, caused by analgesics (35%), affected children younger than 5 years of age (41.4%), and occurred via ingestion (99.2%). It can be concluded that as most poisoning cases affected children, this highlights the importance of increasing awareness and educating families about the safe handling and storage of drugs out of reach of children.

Keywords:

• Acute poisoning
• drug
• Saudi Arabia
• toxic substance
• accidental
• analgesics

Acknowledgements

The researchers would like to thank the Deanship of Scientific Research, Qassim University for funding the publication of this project.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: SMA. Methodology: SMA, AAA MSA. Formal analysis: MSA. Investigation: SMA, AAA. Data curation: MSA. Writing—original draft: AAA. Writing—review and editing: SMA, AAA, MSA, MA. Supervision: SMA, AAA, MSA, MA.

Institutional review board statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Qassim Research Ethics Committee, Saudi Arabia (No. 20170415 Dated: 27/04/2017).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, SA. upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.