Emergency Department Visits due to Medication Overdose in a Finnish University Hospital.

A recent study examined emergency department (ED) visits due to medication overdose in Finland, specifically at Tampere University Hospital. The study included all patients who visited the ED with ICD-10 codes T36-T50.9 in 2021, totaling 803 visits from 631 individual patients. This accounted for approximately 0.7% of all ED visits that year. The majority of these visits, 70%, were due to intentional self-harm, while 17% were attributed to inebriation and 13% were classified as "other." The patient demographics showed a mean age of 35 years, with a range of 1-95 years, and a predominance of female patients, making up 63% of the total. The study also analyzed the types of medications involved in the overdoses and found that benzodiazepines were the most common, implicated in 40% of the visits. Antipsychotics, antidepressants, paracetamol, and opiates followed, involved in 28%, 19%, 15%, and 13% of the visits, respectively. Notably, 52% of the visits involved the ingestion of more than one medication, highlighting the complexity of these overdose cases. Despite the severity of these incidents, the study reported that 26% of patients required intensive or high-dependency care, but there were no overdose-related in-hospital deaths. The overall 1-year mortality rate after an overdose was relatively low at 2.8%. These findings suggest that while medication overdoses are a significant concern, the healthcare system in Finland is effective in managing these cases and preventing fatalities. The predominance of self-harm and psychoactive medications in these overdoses also underscores the need for targeted interventions and support for individuals struggling with mental health issues and substance use. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40326222/