title: Positive determinations of tricyclic antidepressant drugs in the material of toxicological laboratory--analysis of trends.
abstract: This paper presents the analysis of trends in a number of cases and an average age of patients for whom determination of tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) showed positive results. The studied data were gathered in toxicological laboratory of Dept. of Analytical Toxicology and Therapeutic Drug, CM UJ in Kraków. The data were collected in period December 2001 August 2004. The main findings of this study are: The number of cases is exponentially increasing at the rate of 0.068% per day (p = 0.0165). No statistically significant correlation between the number of cases and: (a) day-length (p = 0.9819), (b) day-length change (p = 0.2312), (c) direction of change of day-length (p = 0.4640), d) day of the week (p = 0.7588) has been found, so periodicity of this phenomenon is questionable. It has been observed that the average age of patients is decreasing and the estimated rate of this decrease equals 0.0092-years per day (p = 0.0555). TCA positive patients treated in the Clinic on different days of the week differ in average age (p = 0.0016). From Tuesday till Friday the average age of patients is increasing. In the middle of the studied period the increase started from 30-year-olds on Mondays and ended with 48-year-old patients on Friday. At weekends the average dropped to 38 and stayed constant. On Mondays the average was about 46.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Toxicology and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Jagiellonian University Medical College Kraków, Poland. jennerb@poczta.fm
authors.forename: Bartosz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jenner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic / Q000506:poisoning* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy; D062787:Drug Overdose / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D008499:Medical Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011044:Poland / Q000453:epidemiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology / Q000639:trends*; D014116:Toxicology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic