The Evaluation of Blood Glucose and pH Levels of the Patients Who Attempt Suicide With Drug Overdose

Year 2019, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 21 - 24, 01.03.2019

İlker Akbaş Sultan Tuna Akgöl Gür , Abdullah Osman Koçak

Abstract

Introduction:
Throughout the history of humanity, suicides in
all societies are not only a matter of concern to the psychiatrists, but also
have economic, cultural and social aspects. The World Health Organization
divides the suicides into completed suicides and suicide attempts and determines
that the completed suicides result in deaths. Suicide attempts are all
non-lethal voluntary attempts to destroy, harm, and poison oneself.

Method:
Our study was done retrospectively in the
emergency department of Faculty Hospital at Atatürk University. The files of
the intoxication patients who applied to our hospital between 01.01.2010 and
31.12.2011 were examined. The patients who applied to our hospital after taking
pills for suicidal reasons were included in the study. In addition to
demographic data such as age, gender, marital status, these patients were
classified according to the drugs they took like psychiatric drugs
(antidepressant, anxiolytic) and analgesic (paracetamol, NSAID) and antibiotic
drugs. Psychiatric diagnose, Glasgow coma score, blood pH  at the time of presentation, glucose and
hospitalization time(less than 1 day, more than 1 day) were registered.

Results: From the file scan, the data of a sum of 234 patients was reached. 69.7% (n = 163) of the patients were female. The mean age of the patients was 24.64 (± 9.463). According to marital status, 75 (32.1%) of the patients were married, 150 (64.1%) were single, 5 were widow (2.1%) and 4 (n = 1.7) patients were engaged. According to the drugs they used for suicide, there were 72 (30.8%) patients who used psychiatric drugs and 83 (35.5) patients who used analgesics and antibiotics. The number of patients that were hospitalized above 24 hours was 38 (16.2%). In the statistical analysis, there was no significant difference between GCS, pH and Glucose values of the patients who committed suicide with Psychiatric and Antibiotic-Analgesic drugs (p> 0.05). Similarly, there was also no significant difference between hospitalization times (p> 0.05).

Discussion: As a result
of our study, it was found that the patients that committed and attempted
suicide were under 30 years old and mostly women. Considering the drugs used
for suicidal purposes, no difference could be detected between the use of
analgesic-antibiotics and psychiatric medication on blood parameters and GCS.

Keywords

Suicide attempts, drug overdose, glucose, ph, bloood analyzes

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