Reliability of Routine Hospital Data on Poisoning as Measures of Deliberate Self Poisoning in Adolescents

In this study, hospital records were examined to discover how many cases of poisoning reflected deliberate self-poisoning, as well as to discover the overall accuracy of diagnostic information on poisoning. The authors found that over 95% of the records were correctly coded. They conclude that deliberate self poisoning in adolescents can be identified through routinely collected hospital statistics. (VM)