Epidemiology of Tramadol Poisoning in Qaemshahr, Iran

Tramadol poisoning is a serious medical emergency and one of the most common causes of drug poisoning. The present study aims to determine the epidemiological features of patients who were served by Qaemshahr pre-hospital emergency care due to tramadol toxicity in 2016.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, medical records of patients with toxicity that received pre-hospital emergency care in Qaemshahr, Iran (2016-2017) were studied and relevant information were extracted.  Data analysis was done in SPSS V22.

Tramadol toxicity included 29.6% of the total poisonings and 50% of drug toxicity cases. There were 118 cases with tramadol poisoning, including 94.9% men and 5.1% women. The average age of patients was 26.61 years and the majority (66.1%) aged 21-30 years old. All patients took tramadol orally and the main cause of toxicity was drug abuse (94.1%). Among the patients, 65.3% had no medical history and 29.7% had the history of narcotic abuse.

In this study, tramadol toxicity was the most prevalent cause of drug poisoning especially in young people due to drug abuse. Therefore, informing young people and their families about the consequences of tramadol abuse, extra precautions in its distribution, and lower prescription rates are effective in preventing and reducing tramadol toxicity.