Introduction:

acute poisoning is a potentially serious health problem and a frequent reason for consultation in hospital emergency departments.

Objectives:

to analyze the behavior of acute intoxications in Villa Clara Province during the months of March, April and May, the first months of the new coronavirus in Cuba.

Methods:

a descriptive, retrospective and comparative study was carried out between 2019 and 2020, the universe was taken as the telephone consultations attended at the Toxicology Center of Villa Clara in the months of March, April and May, in which it was necessary to confirm the intoxication in the Analytical Toxicology Laboratory.

Results:

the processing of biological fluid samples with toxicological interest increased by 26.9% during the first three months of social isolation in the province compared to the same period in 2019. Of the total number of samples with positive results in the months of isolation 69.2% of the patients were for suicidal purposes and in 30.7% consumption of substances of abuse for recreational purposes. In the month of April 2020, 85.7% of positivity was confirmed in the samples analyzed.

Conclusions:

the confinement for the confrontation against the coronavirus can be detrimental to mental health and promote the risk of suicide among the population, a fact evidenced by the analysis of the behavior of the positivity of samples for suicidal purposes in the most critical month in the city of Santa Clara during the first trimester of the pandemic in Cuba.

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