Availability of antidotes in 70 hospitals in Catalonia, Spain.

Background And Objective: Antidotes may have a relevant role in acute intoxication management and the time until its administration can influence patient survival.

Patients And Method: Study conducted by a questionnaire sent in early 2015 to 70 hospitals in Catalonia providing emergency services. Qualitative availability on each antidote was considered adequate when present in at least 80% of hospitals. The quantitative availability was considered adequate when at least 80% of hospitals had the number of units of antidote recommended.

Results: Lower complexity hospitals (level A) showed a percentage of adequate qualitative and quantitative availability of 66.7 and 42.9% respectively. In higher complexity hospitals (level B) qualitative and quantitative availability was adequate in 64.5 and 38.7% of the antidotes respectively. Data showed no differences between the different health regions as well as a positive correlation (p<.05) between the number of emergencies attended and the percentage of adequate qualitative availability.

Conclusions: The availability of antidotes in Catalonia hospitals is generally low and shows differences across health regions and depending on level of complexity.