Birutė Strukčinskienė, Dalija Stasiuvienė, Diana Šopagienė
Abstract
External causes of deaths are one of the main public health problems globally. Nowadays poisonings are among the leading causes of external causes, along with traffic injury, suicide, drowning, falls, and fire/burn. In Lithuania, injuries are the third leading cause of death for the last several years.
There were analysed non-fatal poisonings in Klaipeda over 2009-2011. The document analysis and descriptive statistics was used. For the study, data from Klaipeda Public Health Center was analysed on non-fatal poisonings. All acute poisonings treated at the health care institutions in Klaipeda were included in our study. The study revealed that there were 423 patients (53.2% male and 46.8% female) treated because of acute poisonings over 2009-2011 in Klaipeda (3.3% as suicide attempts). The majority of patients (89.9%) were children aged 0 to 17 years. The most frequent main toxic agents were alcohol and medications. There were recorded 66% poisonings at home, and 16.8% accidental overdoses with substances of abuse taken during leisure time. The study showed that special attention should be paid to the child and adolescent safety at home and leisure-time safety.
Keyword(s): poisonings; external causes of death; children and adolescents; safety at home; leisure-time safety
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2013.004
Full Text: PDF