ReviewJournal of medical toxicology : official journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology2017
Should We Be Using the Poisoning Severity Score?
Review in Journal of medical toxicology : official journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed.
- Breast milk-associated mushroom poisoning in a toddler: a case report.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Development and internal validation of a parsimonious clinical score for multiple organ dysfunction syndrome following acute poisoning: a retrospective cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Role of Central Venous Pressure and Mean Arterial Pressure to Central Venous Pressure Ratio in Assessing Poisoning Severity and Poor Outcomes in Intensive Care Unit-Admitted Acute Aluminum Phosphide-Poisoned Patients.Cardiovascular toxicology · 2026Article
- Less is more: Evaluating the effectiveness of simplified two and three-element scores for predicting unfavorable outcomes in acute toxic alcohol exposure: A multi-center study.Toxicology reports · 2025Article
- Role of serum glucose/potassium ratio in assessing poisoning severity and adverse outcomes in patients with acute aluminum phosphide poisoning.Toxicology reports · 2025Article
- A comparison of different scores for mortality prediction of acutely poisoned patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Toxicology research · 2025Article
- Medical Toxicology Consultations and Mortality Among Patients With Poisonings in the PICU.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Evaluation of acute substance abuse patients admitted to the ICU by different scoring system.Toxicology research · 2025Article
- Prognostic value of PGI score compared to poison severity score (PSS) and simplified acute physiology score (SAPS) II as predictors of mortality and other adverse outcomes in acute poisoning with aluminum phosphide.Toxicology reports · 2024Article
- Assessment of the pattern, severity, and outcomes of acute mood stabilizer drug poisoning.Toxicology research · 2024Article
- Assessment of acute poisoning in children using poisoning severity scores: A cross-sectional study at Damietta General Hospital Egypt.Toxicology reports · 2024Article
- Critical care management of acute intoxications, dynamics and changes over time: a cohort study.Internal and emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine Position Statement: Approach to a Patient with Poisoning in the Emergency Room and Intensive Care Unit.Indian journal of critical care medicine : peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine · 2024Article
- Validity of different scoring systems in prediction of intensive care unit admission and mortality in acute organophosphate poisoning.Toxicology research · 2024Article
- Predictors of Serotonin Syndrome in Acute Poisoning with 5-Hydroxytryptamine Modulators.Toxics · 2024Article
- Performance of several clinical scoring systems as predictors of adverse outcomes in acute exposure to toxic alcohols.Toxicology research · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the new poisoning mortality score in comparison with PSS and SOFA scoring systems to predict mortality in poisoned patients admitted to the intensive care unit.Toxicology research · 2024Article
- Creating and evaluating the score to assess overdose: the OD score.BMC emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Factors associated with refusing hemoperfusion in patients with acute paraquat poisoning.Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences · 2024Article
- Comparison of different scores as predictors of mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit admission in acute theophylline poisoning.Toxicology research · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionDespite the existence of a number of severity-of-illness classifications for other areas of medicine, toxicology research lacks a well-accepted method for assessing the severity of poisoning. The Poisoning Severity Score (PSS) was developed in the 1990s in Europe as a scoring system for poisonings reported to a poison center in order to describe a patient's most severe symptomatology. We reviewed the literature to describe how the PSS is utilized and describe its limitations. DISCUSSION: We searched the medical literature in all languages using PUBMED, EMBASE, and SCOPUS from inception through August 2013 using predefined search terms. Out of 204 eligible publications, 40 met our criteria for inclusion in this review. There has been a paucity of published studies from North America that used the PSS. In some cases, the PSS was misapplied or modified from standard scoring, making a bottom line appraisal of the validity or reliability of the original version of the instrument challenging. The PSS has several subjective criteria, is time consuming to score, and is likely to be of little use with some types of poisonings, limiting its clinical utility.
conclusionThe PSS was developed as a tool to document encounters with poisoned patients. However, it is used infrequently and, when applied, has been misused or modified from its original form. In its current form, it has limited clinical utility and likely cannot be broadly applied to many exposures due to their unique clinical circumstances. With better global collaboration among medical toxicologists, it is possible that a modified score could be developed for use clinically or as a research instrument.
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