ASSESSMENT OF MAGNITUDE, TREATMENT OUTCOMES AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS OF ACUTE POISONING CASES ADMITTED TO WOLKITE UNIVERSITY SPECIALISED HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, SOUTHWEST ETHIOPIA, 2022: A RETROSPECTIVE FOLLOWUP STUDY

Abstract

Background: Poisoning is a qualitative term used to define the potential of a chemical substance in acting adversely or deleteriously on the body. It is a common cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is a public health challenge in low and middle income countries including Ethiopia. Objective: to assess magnitude, treatment outcomes and associated factors of acute poisoning cases admitted to Wolkite university specialized hospital, southwest Ethiopia, 2022.Method and material: A retrospective follow up study was conducted on acutely poisoned patients admitted to Wolkite University Specialized Hospital from September 2013 to May 2014. Data were collected from a total of 284 records of poisoned patients using semi structured abstraction tool and then coded and entered to Epi data version 3.02 and exported to SPSS Version 26 Software for analysis. Invariable and multivariable binary logistic regression was done. Variables that had significance association with the dependent variable were reported using odds ratios and 95% confidence level at p<0.05. The study findings were summarized using median, frequency, proportions, and presented by texts, graphs and tables. Result: About half (50.7%) of cases were females, and (51.1%) were in the age group of 15–29 years. Organophosphates were the most common poisoning agents (64.8%). About half(50.7%) poisoning cases were self-poisoned intentionally, while the 27.5% had an unknown manner of poisoning. Quarrel with family, (22.1%); income problem, (4.9%); and marital and love disharmony (4.6%) were the three most common causes of intentional poisoning. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment approaches were used. Medication other than antidote was the most commonly used pharmacologic treatment (31.5%). In the multivariable analysis, type of poisons (organophosphate) (AOR=21.07; 95% confidence interval= 1.86, 238.26) and patient status at admission (AOR= 46.31; 95% confidence interval= 7.1, 301.87) were factors significantly associated with treatment outcome of acutely poisoned patients at p< 0.05.Conclusion: the prevalence of acute poisoning in the study was 2.6% per total emergency cases. Young and adults (15-29) were accounted for the majority of poisoning cases. In this study deliberate self-poisoning was a problem mainly of the young adults below 30 tears. Moreover, majority of the cases were from rural areas and quarrel was main reason for intentional poisoning. Furthermore prevalence of poor treatment outcome was 8%. Organophosphates were leading cause of poisoning with most prevalence of death.