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Abstract
All children, 17 years of age or less, admitted to the Children's Hospital of Hacettepe University Medical Center in Ankara during the period of 1975 to 1984 with a diagnosis of poisoning were studied.
Of the 1188 cases reviewed, mode of poisoning was deliberate self-poisoning in a total of 152 cases (12.8%). Drugs accounted for 95.4%, insecticides for 3.9% and carbon monoxide for only 0.7% of the overall suicide attempts or gestures.
Analgesics and tranquilizers were the most common agents encountered, however the major drug used for self-poisoning was a barbiturate containing analgesic, Optalidon.
The incidence of self-poisoning was 79.0% in the age group 13-17 of the overall poison admissions and in all of the age groups self-poisoning showed a significant (p < 0.001) sex difference with definite prevalance of girls.