Epidemiology of Death Caused by Drug Abuse in Golestan Province during 2010-2015

Drug abuse is one of the most psychosocial and public health challenges in the world that is increasing every day and lead to disability and death. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of death due to drug abuse in Golestan province. This cross-sectional study was carried out on all referential bodies to Golestan department of forensic medicine that were died due to drug abuse from March 2010 to March 2016. Data were collected from medical records and analyzed using SPSS version 16 and Pearson chi-square test. Of the 170 people, who had drug abuse, 95.9% were male and 32.4% were 30-39 years old. The majority of cases (81.8%) were urban residents. Most of them were married (53.5%) and 38.2% of them had secondary education. Drug abuse was identified as the main cause of death (40%). In 56.5% of cases, injection was the most important way of drug abuse. Opium was the most common agents of death due to drug abuse in Golestan province that were observed mostly among married men aged 30-39 years.