Voluntary self-poisoning as a cause of admission to a tertiary hospital internal medicine clinic in Piraeus, Greece within a year

BACKGROUND: Out of 1705 patients hospitalised for various reasons in the 3(rd) Internal Medicine Department of the Regional General Hospital of Nikaea, in Piraeus, 146(8,5%) persons were admitted for drug intoxication between November 1999 and November 2000. METHODS: On average, these persons [male 50(34,2%) – female 96(65,8%)] were admitted to the hospital within 3.7 hours after taking the drug. RESULTS: The drugs that were more frequently taken, alone or in combination with other drugs, were sedatives (67.1%), aspirins and analgesics (mainly paracetamol) (43.5%). 38.3% of patients had a mental illness history, 31.5% were in need of psychiatric help and 45.2% had made a previous suicide attempt. No death occurred during the above period and the outcome of the patients' health was normal. After mental state examination, the mental illnesses diagnosed were depression (20.96%), psychosis (15.32%), dysthymic disorder (16,2%), anxiety disorder (22.58%) and personality disorder (8.87%). CONCLUSIONS: Self-poisoning remains a crucial problem. The use of paracetamol and sedatives are particularly important in the population studied. Interpersonal psychiatric therapy may be a valuable treatment after people tried to poison themselves

Cardiac arrest teams and time of day: effects on surviving in-hospital resuscitation

Martin Christ, Wolfgang Dierschke, Katharina Isabel von Auenmueller, Marc van Bracht, Martin Grett, Hans-Joachim Trappe Department of Cardiology and Angiology, Marienhospital Herne, Ruhr – University Bochum, Herne, Germany Objectives: Little is known about the factors that influence survival following in-hospital resuscitation, but previous investigations have suggested that in-hospital resuscitations outside of regular working hours are associated with worse survival rates. Material and methods: In-hospital cardiac arrest teams at our hospital were instructed to complete a questionnaire following every emergency call between July 2011 and June 2013. Data on all resuscitation attempts were collected and analyzed. Results: A total of 65 in-hospital resuscitations were recorded in 42 males (64.6%) and 23 females (35.4%) (mean age 72.0±14.3 years). A total of 54 (83.1%) cardiac arrests were witnessed; seven (10.8%) showed a shockable rhythm at the time of the first ECG. Resuscitation attempts lasted 29.3±41.3 minutes, and 4.1±3.1 mg epinephrine was given. Return of spontaneous circulation could be achieved in 38 patients (58.5%); 29 (44.6%) survived the first day, 23 (35.4%) the seventh day, and 15 patients (23.1%) were discharged alive. Significantly more in-hospital resuscitations were obtained for those performed during non-regular working hours (P<0.001), with higher neuron-specific enolase levels at 72 hours after resuscitation during nonregular working hours (P=0.04). Patients who were discharged alive were significantly younger (P=0.01), presented more often with an initial shockable rhythm (P=0.04), and had a shorter duration of resuscitation (P<0.001) with the need of a lower dose of epinephrine (P<0.001). Discussion: Survival rates following in-hospital resuscitation were poor at any time, but appear to depend less on time-dependent effects of the quality of resuscitation and more on time-dependent effects of recognition of cardiac arrests. Keywords: sudden cardiac death, emergency medicine, time of da