A retrospective study on cases of acute poisoning occuring in Kenyatta National Hospital for the period January 2002-June 2003

Abstract

Chemicals are used in agriculture, industry, public health and in the home all over the world. Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world suffer or die from poisorung. The study is a retrospective study carried out at Medical Records Department Kenyatta National Hospital. The age, sex, circumstance, type of poison, route of poisoning, management and outcome of all cases of acute poisoning occurring at the hospital during the period. January 2002- June 2003 was studied. A total of 458 patients were studied. The most common poisoning agents encountered pesticides(43%), followed by household agents and industrial chemicals(24%), then drugs (14%), biological toxins (9%), unknown (7%) and plants (3%). 57.4% of cases poisoned with pesticides were due to organophosphates while 31% were due to rodenticide ingestion. Pesticide poisoning was most prevalent in the 21-30 year.54.82 % of cases of pesticide poisoning belonged to this age group. These accounted for 65.1 % of all cases of poisoning occurring in this age group. 67% of cases poisoned with household and industrial agents were due to kerosene poisoning.89.3 % of all cases of poisoning with kerosene were aged 0-5 years. This accounted for 59.8% of cases of poisoning that occurred in this age group. It was found that there was a relationship between age & sex & circumstance. Poisoning was most prevalent at age 21-30 years (36%) followed by 0-5 years (25%). In general more males that females were poisoned. 58.9 % of cases of poisoning were males 41.1% were females Suicide is the most common circumstance of poisoning (43%) followed by accidental (35 %) Suicide was most common at ages 21-30 years (58.8%), Accidental causes of poisoning were most common at 0-5 years (57.9%) Management of patients was found to be satisfactory but there is room for improvement especially in the use of antibiotics. Cases of kerosene poisoning were managed with antibiotics (90.7%). Vitamin K was used in zinc phosphide poisoning (40% of cases), an inorganic rodenticide not related to warfarin in its mode of action. Most patients got better after a while and were discharged; 32 cases (7%) were fatal.