Pharmaceutical poisonings in Lithuania: dynamics of epidemiological situation 2013 to 2017

Abstract

Introduction Medicament poisonings remain significant cause of patients’ hospitalization and reason of death. The aim of this retrospective epidemiological study was to investigate the epidemiological situation of pharmaceutical poisonings in Lithuania: to identify medicines mostly associated with poisonings and define changes in rates of poisoning with most common medicament groups and differences among age and gender groups of people in 5-years period. Materials and Methods Hospital and death records for pacients admitted with a diagnosis of medicament poisoning were analyzed. Data on pharmaceutical poisoning cases presented to medical institutions in Lithuania during period from 2013 to 2017 were obtained from National Health Insurance Fund under the Ministry of Health. Results and discussion The results showed, that total number of poisoning accidents present to medical institutions in Lithuania reduces every year, it decreased 1.75-fold from 1741 in 2013 to 992 in 2017. During 5-year period the main group of medicines causing one third of all pharmaceutical poisonings linked to hospitals are benzodiazepines (code T42.4 on ICD-10) and other groups of psychotropic medications remain among other leading groups. The second largest number of poisonings (approx. 10% every year) is occupied by anticoagulants (code T45.5 on ICD-10). The rate of poisoning with benzodiazepines has decreased by 10% and only by 1% of anticoagulants over 5 years. Since 2013 the frequency of poisoning with unspecified antipsychotics and neuroleptics (code T43.5 on ICD-10) has increased by 4,6%. Also, slight 1% increase is notable in the groups of butyrophenone and thioxanthene neuroleptics (T.43.4), unspecified psychotropic drugs (T43.9), other and unspecified antidepressants (T43.2) and 4-aminophenol derivatives (T39.1). Hospital admission rates by gender show that 61,64% of total number of hospital admissions every year are made by female and 38,36% by male. Approximately 40% of