Citation

Krakowiak A, Bak M, Politański P, Piekarska-Wijatkowska A. Int. J. Occup. Med. Environ. Health 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland (Department of Toxicology, Poison Information Centre).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Lodz and the Polish Association of Occupational Medicine, Publisher Walter de Gruyter)

DOI

10.13075/ijomeh.1896.01575

PMID

32396146

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Intoxication with novel psychoactive drugs poses a significant challenge for medicine due to diagnostic difficulties, complex clinical patterns resulting from the polyethiology of poisoning, and the risk of fatal complications. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The authors of the present work have made a retrospective review of medical records of the patients hospitalized at the Toxicology Unit (TU), diagnosed with poisoning by novel recreational drugs.

RESULTS: In 2008-2013, 576 patients diagnosed with that type of poisoning were admitted to the TU. Of those, 192 (33.3%) patients were positive for ethanol in addition to the most popular toxins found in the material collected from the patients, such as tetrahydrocannabinol (50 [8.6%] patients) and amphetamine (35 [6.1%] patients). The most frequent clinical symptoms observed on admission were: anxiety (433 [75.1%] patients), agitation (275 [47.7%] patients), and complaints associated with the circulatory system (225 [39.1%] patients). In the subgroup of 104 (18.0%) psychiatrist-interviewed people, a relationship was found between the suicidal ideation reported during history-taking and the following factors: earlier psychiatric treatment (p = 0.000), financial problems (p = 0.015) and prolonged unemployment (p = 0.022).

CONCLUSIONS: The observed clinical pattern may be associated with sympathomimetic syndrome due to poisoning by novel psychoactive substances. Preliminary results of this research show that financial problems and a history of psychiatric treatment may enhance suicidal ideation in patients after acute poisoning by psychoactive substances.

This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.

Language: en

Keywords

acute poisoning; clinical symptoms; designer drugs; novel psychoactive substances; suicide attempt; xenobiotic