Toxicity in Overdose
Toxicity of psychotropic medications in overdose
It is important for prescribers to have a general awareness of relative risk among medications and select drugs accordingly. Multi-drug overdoses are more serious. Certain drugs that are relatively benign in single-drug overdoses (e.g., benzodiazepines, quetiapine, gabapentin) are more dangerous when combined with or drugs or alcohol.
Patients presenting to the emergency department with a single-drug overdose on a drug with mortality index < 3 could probably be admitted directly to the behavioral health unit if there are no major mental status changes and ECG shows no cardiac conduction delay. Otherwise, most overdose patients should be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).
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