Elderly patients visiting the emergency department for deliberate self-poisoning: do they present a more severe poisoning severity score than the nonelderly patients in the initial 24 h?

Purpose: Many elderly patients arrive at the emergency department (ED) complaining of deliberate self-poisoning (DSP). This study determined the poisoning severity of elderly patients who committed DSP. Methods: A study was performed with 1329 patients (> 15 years of age) who were treated for DSP at two EDs between January 2010 and December 2016. We classified these patients into two groups based on age (an elderly group ≥ 65 years of age and a nonelderly group). Information was collected on age, sex, cause, ingestion time, drug type, suicide attempt history, initial poisoning severity score (PSS), final PSS, outcome, etc. Results: In total, 242 (18.2%) patients were included in the elderly group, of whom 211 (86.9%) were treated for a first suicide attempt. Admission to the intensive-care unit (ICU) (43.8% vs. 25.5%) and endotracheal intubation (16.1% vs. 4.9%) occurred more frequently in the elderly group than in the nonelderly group (p < 0.001). The frequencies of initial severe PSSs (3 and 4) in the elderly group were 9.1% (N = 22) and 1.2% (N = 3), respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the ICU admission of DSP patients was significantly associated with being elderly (OR of 1.47, 95% CI 1.04–2.09, p = 0.029) and with having a GCS of < 13 (OR of 2.67, 95% CI 1.99–3.57, p < 0.001) and an initial PSS of (3,4) (OR of 3.66, 95% CI 2.14–6.26, p < 0.001). In addition, the presence of underlying diseases (coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease) yielded high ORs [(OR of 13.13, 95% CI 2.80–61.57, p = 0.001), (OR of 7.34, 95% CI 1.38–39.09, p = 0.020)]. Conclusion: Elderly patients who visited the ED for DSP exhibited overall more severe PSSs and poorer in-hospital prognosis than did nonelderly DSP patients.