Demographic Profile of Poisoning Cases in a Tertiary Care Center in South India – An Observational Study

Abstract

The word ‘poison’ has been evolved from the Latin word ‘potion’ i.e. ‘to drink for health’, but in the due

course of time the definition of ‘poison’ has changed reversibly to its present form i.e. any substance which

when administered, inhaled or ingested is capable of acting deleteriously on the human body. In the current

study we have aimed at determining the demographic profile of poison cases reporting to our institute. This

prospective study was carried out involving 353 cases of poisoning admitted in Sri Ramachandra Medical

College & Research Institute, Sri Ramachandra University, Porur, Chennai, during the period of June 2014-

June 2015. Age-wise distribution of poisoning cases revealed that the maximum cases are in the age group

of 20-29 years and the incidence decreased as the age increases. It is evident that the incidence of poisoning

is more in case of females when compared to males. Occupation-wise distribution revealed poisoning is

more common among people who are skilled workers contributing 167 cases. Socio economic status wise

distribution revealed poisoning is more common among the people who belong to Upper middle (52%),

followed by 33% of cases belong to Middle class. Poisoning is more common among married people when

compared to unmarried people. Out of 353 cases, 203 cases were married, which accounts for 58%, 150

cases were unmarried, which accounts for 48%. Distribution of the study population based on the type of

family revealed that out of total 353 cases, 299 cases belonged to nuclear family. Persons who belong to joint

family were 46 in number.