A Prospective Study of 1212 Cases of Acute Poisoning: General Epidemiology

A prospective multicentre study of all acute poisonings among adults admitted to hospital or dying outside hospital in Oslo was performed during 1980. Of the 1212 episodes, 98.3% were self-poisonings. The main toxic agents are listed. Substance abuse was significantly more common among males than females. Overall mortality was 6% but 91.8% of all deaths occurred outside hospital indicating the importance of including these figures when self-poisonings are studied. 27 refs.