Plant poisoning is a major cause for morbidity and mortality especially in the developing world like India and mainly involves young productive individuals. An in-depth knowledge into the manifestations of plant poisoning and the danger signs would help in predicting the adverse risk factors and lead to better outcome in such patients. There are only very few studies on clinical profile of plant poisoning from south India. Hence we took up the study to determine the effects of plant poisoning admitted to a tertiary care referral hospital over a period of one year. 143 cases of plant poisoning were admitted during this period. Most of them consumed Oduku(53.15%) followed by Yellow oleander (39.86%) and Abrus precatorius (6.99%). Mean age of the population was 31.09 with a standard deviation of 14.87. Male to female ratio was almost equal. Common presenting symptoms were nausea and vomiting. Hypokalemia is one of the common manifestations of Oduku poisoning which had previously been described as a poor prognostic sign in various studies. Most common ECG finding noted was ST-T changes, which was found to be a poor prognostic factor. Mortality rate of Oduku poisoning was 2.63%. Most of the patients had normal ECG, sinus bradycardia was present in 9(16.36%) patients, 3 patients (5.45%) had first degree heart block and second degree heart block in one patient (1.82%).None of them had complete heart block or QT prolongation. Hyperkalemia was observed in 6 patients (10.90%) on admission, 5 patients (9.09%) after 24 hours, and one patient (1.85%) after 48 hours. Mortality rate found in our study was 3.6%. Patients admitted with consumption of Abrus precatorius didn’t show significant electrolyte disturbance or ECG changes.
