title: Fatal drug poisonings in a Swedish general population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pharmaceutical drug poisonings have previously been reported using single sources of information, either hospital data or forensic data, which might not reveal the true incidence. We therefore aimed to estimate the incidence of suspected fatal drug poisonings, defined as poisonings by pharmaceutical agents, by using all relevant case records from various sources in a Swedish population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Every seventh randomly selected deceased in three counties in southeastern Sweden during a one-year period was identified in the Cause of Death Register. Relevant case records (death certificates, files from hospitals and/or primary care centres and medico-legal files) were reviewed for all study subjects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 1574 deceased study subjects, 12 cases were classified as pharmaceutical drug poisonings according to the death certificates and 10 according to the medico-legal files. When reviewing all available data sources, 9 subjects (0.57%; 95% confidence interval: 0.20-0.94%) were classified as drug poisonings, corresponding to an incidence of 6.5 (95% confidence interval: 2.3-10.7) per 100,000 person-years in the general population. The drug groups most often implicated were benzodiazepines (33%), antihistamines (33%) and analgesics (22%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Fatal drug poisonings is a relatively common cause of death in Sweden. By using multiple sources of information when investigating the proportion of fatal poisonings in a population, more accurate estimates may be obtained.
authors.affiliation: Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden. anna.k.jonsson@nhv.se
authors.forename: Anna K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Jönsson
authors.forename: Olav
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Spigset
authors.forename: Micaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tjäderborn
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Druid
authors.forename: Staffan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hägg
mesh_terms: D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011041:Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality*; D055553:Prescription Drugs / Q000506:poisoning*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D055553:Prescription Drugs