TY  - JOUR
PY  - 1994//
TI  - Drug overdosage and other poisoning in Hong Kong--the Prince of Wales Hospital (Shatin) experience
JO  - Human and experimental toxicology
A1  - Chan, T. Y.
A1  - Critchley, J. A.
A1  - Chan, M. T.
A1  - Yu, C. M.
SP  - 512
EP  - 515
VL  - 13
IS  - 7
N2  - 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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0960-3271
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -