Profile study of fatal poisoning cases brought for postmortemexamination at general hospital, palanpur (Gujarat)

In India, insecticides and agrochemical fertilizer are widely used in agriculture so the poisoning with pesticides is more frequent. It is mainly due to illiteracy, unsafe practices, lack of protective equipment, lack of training how to use, accessibility of toxic insecticides and poor legislative control. Organophosphate is the most frequently used pesticides in agriculture. Many studies have reported that higher mortality in self-poisoning than accidental poisoning.

This was a retrospective study conducted in Post mortem department of Palanpur general hospital after permission of institutional ethics committee. All the poisoning deaths coming for the postmortem examination during January 2015 to December 2018 were studied. All the details regarding post mortem findings, age, gender, religion, marital status and manner of death, type of poison, time and month of intake, route of exposure, and outcome of poisoning and associated co-morbid conditions were recorded in pre designed proforma.

Out of 899 post-mortem, 122 poison cases (13.7%) were studied. Majority of victims were male (63.9%), farmers (50.8%) and in between 21 years to 30 years (32.8%). About 91.8% were suicidal followed by accidental (3.3%). In majority of cases (95.9%) route of exposure was oral. Organophosphates alone responsible for maximum mortalities (45.9%) followed by aluminium phosphide (27.9%) and organochlorine insecticides (11.5%). Most common house hold poison was hydrogen chloride (5.7%), kerosene (1.6%) and zinc phosphide (0.8%).

Most prevalent poison was organophosphorus compounds and aluminium phosphide. Awareness about the proper storage, potential toxicity of insecticidesand first aid should be increased among community. Poison Information Centers should become operational in every district hospitaland medical colleges.