Forecasting trends in hospitalisations due to drug poisoning in Semnan, Iran up to 2021: time series modelling

Abstract

Introduction: Investigating and forecasting the changes in the frequency of referrals to the treatment centres of the patients with drug poisoning can aid the assessment of the burden of health problems and planning of appropriate intervention programmes. The aim of this study is to predict the trend of drug poisoning case referrals to the Iranian hospitals up to 2021. Material and methods: The Box & Jenkins model was applied in a longitudinal study to forecast the frequency of drug and alcohol poisoning surveys, which showed that drug abuse prevalence in Iran is higher than the global mean, were also confirmed by our research. The limitation of our study is the lack of access to the full information on psychoactive substance consumption as well as classified information like police and national registry system da-tabases. Conclusions: Our study revealed a rising trend for drug poisoning patients referred to the studied hospitals. The forecasting also suggested that the trend will continue up to 2021 without suitable intervention.