• J Puiguriguer Ferrando, S Miralles Corrales, G Frontera Juan, C Campillo-Artero, and B Barceló Martín.
• Servicio de Urgencias y Unidad de Toxicología Clínica, Hospital Universitario son Espases, Palma de Mallorca, Palma de Mallorca, España. Electronic address: jordi.puiguirguer@ssib.es.
• Rev Clin Esp. 2020 Oct 28.

ObjectivesPoisonings continue to be an important public health problem. Herein, we analyzed the epidemiology of poisonings in elderly individuals.MethodsRetrospective cohort study conducted between 2011 and 2019 in a university hospital. We analyzed demographic variables, type of poison involved, suicidal or accidental nature of the poisoning, and the probability of admission, or death to the hospital.ResultsA total of 880 (6.1%) of the 14,300 poisonings treated in the same period occurred in people over 65 years of age. The most numerous group were individuals between 65-69 years-old (39%), followed by the group of 70-75 years-old (20%), being men 57%. In 88% of the cases a single poison participated, being by frequency alcohol (51.6%), drugs (29.5%), and household or industrial products (12.8%). Alcohol intoxication predominated in men up to 75 years of age, and above this age drug or suicidal intoxication predominated, mainly in women. A total of 145 (16%) subjects were hospitalized, the drugs most frequently implicated being digoxin and benzodiazepines. The probability of hospital admission was associated with intoxication by metformin, digoxin, lithium or with the age of the patient (OR per year = 1.03; 95% CI: 1.0-1.06). A total of 19 patients died (2.16%), mainly due to suicidal caustic ingestion (OR = 5.7: 95% CI: 1.4-23.6) or by drugs, directly related to metformin (OR = 10.1; 95% CI: 2.4-42.4).ConclusionsThe prevalence of poisoning in the elderly is not negligible, and physicians should have a high index of suspicion in a complex situation.Copyright © 2020. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U.

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