Abstract              Background: Organophosphate (OP) pesticide poisoning is a major challenging public-health problem in India. An early diagnosis and treatment is of utmost importance in OP poisoning in order to reduce mortality. Knowledge of factors predicting mortality help in reducing the deaths due to OP poisoning. The current study was aimed to investigate the factors predicting mortality in organophosphorus poisoning. Material and Methods: A total of 50 cases, above the age of 13 years with history of exposure to insecticide with characteristic clinical manifestations of insecticide poisoning were included in the study. Information was collected by interviewing patients / their relatives regarding type of poison, amount of poison, time since poisoning, food and/or alcohol consumption. Results: Most vulnerable age group was between 21-30 years (46%) and male to female ratio was 1.27:1. Out of 50 patients 3 patients expired. Mortality was highest in chlorpyriphos (66.7%) followed by parathion (33.3%) andin patients who did not took food before ingestion of OP compound. Mortality was significantly higher in those patients hospitalized two or more hours after ingestion of OP compound. Discussion: Independent predictors of mortality in patients with OP poisoning were found to be nature of OP compound, delay in time of hospitalization and amount of ingestion of compound. Knowledge of these findings which may contribute to mortality help in detecting high-risk patients in the emergency room.

Key Words: Organophosphates, poisoning, mortality, hospitalization.