Screening of Drug Abuse among Violence Related Cases in Emergency Hospital
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- Category: Vol. 85, June 2017
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Screening of Drug Abuse among Violence Related Cases in Emergency Hospital, OSAMA ELBARRANY, ALAA MEKDAD, INAS IBRAHIM, MONA M. ALI and ASMAA ABD EL-SADEK
Abstract
Introduction: Substance abuse is a recognized risk factor in violence in the mentally ill population. But the potential importance of this fact for forensic psychiatric practice and clinical ethics is often underappreciated. The purpose of this review is to present recent research on the relationship between substance abuse, violence, and crime in general.
Aim of the Work: The aim of the study is to explore the propability of a relationship between violent traumatic injuries and substances of abuse in different age groups of both sexes in Emergency Department of Kasr Al-Ainy Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University from April 2014 to December 2015.
Methods: This study is a cross sectional prospective study carried out on adult patients of both sex presented in the Emergency Department of Kasr Al-Ainy Hospital with different types of violent traumatic injuries in the period from April 2014 to December 2015. Samples were collected, stored and analyzed in the laboratory of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department. Urine samples of injured patients were screened for some types of substances of abuse such as cannabis; benzodiazepines and barbiturates using enzyme immune assay procedure (antigen-antibody test), informed consent from all participants was taken before starting the research after complete and extensive description of the study. The research Ethics Committee of Kasr Al-Ainy Faculty of Medicine approved the design of the study.
Results: The final results of the present study showed that 68% of the total injured patients were positive for at least one of the three tested drugs (cannabinoids, benzodiazepines and barbiturates).
Moreover, in the present study, we found that cannabinoids were found in 51% of total injured patients denoting that they are the most prevalent substance of abuse.
Conclusion: In the light of the present results there is a very strong correlation between traumatic injury due to violence or accidents and some substances of abuse as final results through drug screening by enzyme immunoassay show that 68% of the total injured patients were positive for at least one of the three tested drugs (cannabinoids, benzodiazepines and barbiturates).