Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics related to the final condition of patients intoxicated by Paraquat in a hospital in Southwestern Colombia

Abstract

Introduction: Paraquat is an agrochemical that constitutes the first cause of poisoning deaths in different countries. Objective: To relate sociodemographic and clinical characteristics with the final condition of patients intoxicated by paraquat in a hospital in southwestern Colombia. Materials and methods: Observational, descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional and retrospective study. Medical records of patients from a level III institution in the city of Pasto-Colombia, during the period 2013 - 2018, with a diagnosis of paraquat poisoning were reviewed. For each patient, their final condition (alive or deceased) and sociodemographic, clinical and paraclinical information were obtained. Differences were established by group comparisons and the following was designed Results: Information was collected from 299 records and after exclusion, 160 cases were worked with. Characteristics related to the final condition of paraquat intoxicated patients in the study were length of stay (OR = 0.124; 95 % CI 0.03-0.6; p = 0.009), heart rate (OR = 35.65; 95 % CI 1.44-884.78; p = 0.029) and initial creatinine (OR = 1.73; 95 % CI 1.23-2.44; p = 0.002). Conclusion: The proportion of case fatality among patients in this investigation is higher with short hospital stay times, elevated heart rates, and elevated admission creatinine levels. This report may be useful as a rationale in the creation of a severity scale to detect patients with adverse outcome early and achieve timely intervention