general health status in a cohort of iranian patients with intentional self‑poisoning: a preventive approach

background: prevention of  suicide is one of  the most important issues of  community medicine in the world. because of  high accessibility of  people to different drugs in our society, one of   the easiest ways of  suicide is intentional self‑poisoning. in this study, demographic factors and health status of  the patients with intentional self‑poisoning were evaluated. methods: a cross‑sectional study was conducted in the poisoning referral center on 384 patients aged 15–40  years who committed intentional self‑poisoning. information was gathered using two questionnaires about demographic characteristics and the general health status of  the patients. results: 70.5% of  the patients had easy accessibility to drugs. most of  the patients were women (62.5%) and single (51%). history of  psychological disease was demonstrated in 82.5% of  patients. in terms of  general health status, the most common problems were social dysfunction (97.57%) and depression (88.9%). conclusion: easy accessibility to drugs and psychological problems may increase the risk of  intentional self‑poisoning. being religious and the consequent hopefulness may have a positive protecting effect for the prevention of  intentional self‑poisoning.