Investigation of the awareness and knowledge level of the emergency physicians in medical toxicology

Aim: The aim of our research is to have an idea about the awareness and knowledge levels of the physicians working in the emergency department through the questionnaire we created, and to identify and eliminate the deficiencies in this field, to help increase the studies required for the development of this discipline in our country. Method: Our study was carried out with a 125-question questionnaire prepared by specialist physicians who are competent in the field to measure the level of descriptive information and clinical knowledge in order to determine the awareness about the medical toxicology discipline and the level of knowledge about its basic subjects. After the approval of the ethics committee, it was applied to emergency medicine specialists and emergency medicine residents working in emergency departments across the country. The results obtained were evaluated in two subgroups as "adequate" and "insufficient". SPSS 22.0 package program was used in the analysis of the data. Chi-square test and Fisher's Exact test were used to compare independent categorical variables. Statistically a p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: 182 emergency physicians participated in our study. While 72 (39.6%) physicians were sufficient in the general approach to poisonings and toxidromes, 20 (11.0%) physicians were sufficient in the title of specific poisonings. In general, 48 (26.4%) physicians were found to be sufficient. The number of physicians who were not sufficient in any of the titles was 110 (60.4%), 52 (28.6%) were sufficient in one title, and 20 (11.0%) were sufficient in both titles. Statistically higher proficiency rates were found among those who received toxicology training during the residency training, those who found the training sufficient, those who felt competent in managing the poisoned patient, those who had long working years and those who were emergency medicine specialists. Conclusion: With this study, the knowledge level of emergency medicine residents and specialists on the medical management of poisoning patients was evaluated. In the light of the results we obtained in our study, it is emphasized that emergency physicians have deficiencies in the management of poisoning patients and there are issues that need to be improved, the necessity of recognizing medical toxicology as an official specialty and creating a rotation with a standard medical toxicology training program in emergency medicine residency training.