Citation

Chan TY, Critchley JA, Chan MT, Yu CM. Hum. Exp. Toxicol. 1994; 13(7): 512-515.

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, N.T.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7917510

Abstract

From 1988 to 1991, 732 patients (91.1% Chinese) were admitted to four general medical wards at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong with acute poisoning. The patients were predominantly female (68.9%) and relatively young (86.3% below the age of 40). Further analysis of 655 patients indicates that the vast majority of patients (96%) were admitted after self-poisoning with drugs or chemicals while 4% of cases were due to accidental poisoning. The main agents used by the former group included hypnotics/sedatives (33.1%), household products (15.7%), and analgesics (13.7%). There were nine deaths (1.4%). When compared to other Western countries, two important variations in the pattern of acute poisoning were seen. A substantial proportion of drugs ingested by our patients were not precisely identified. 'Dettol', a household product, was commonly used for self-poisoning in Hong Kong. Territory-wide studies of longer duration are needed to provide the physicians in Hong Kong with much needed information on the incidence and the pattern of acute poisoning.

Language: en