Monitoring Scorpionism in Shush County of Khuzestan Province in the First Six Months of 2019

Scorpionism is one of the unpleasant topics for people. The Shush County has a suitable living environment for scorpions. This research was conducted to monitor scorpionism in Shush to provide documents to health system decision-makers.

In a cross-sectional study, all cases of scorpion stings were investigated who were referred to medical centers in Shush County in 2019. The data obtained from the amount of scorpion stings were classified according to gender, age groups, months of the year, type of region (urban or rural) and member exposed to scorpion stings and were analyzed using the Wilcoxon statistical test.

The scorpion sting rates among women (50.3%) were higher than among men (49.7%). The highest and lowest scorpion sting rates were observed in the age groups under 15 years (30.4%) and over 65 years (1.5%), and in September (23.6%) and April (6.9%), respectively. The scorpioism rates were higher in rural areas (79.7%) compared to urban areas (20.3%). Hands (43.2%) were more likely to be stung by scorpions than legs (32.2%) and trunks (24.6%). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test did not show significant differences between scorpionism rates related to gender, age groups, urban or rural type, and organs exposed to scorpion stings. But it showed a significant difference between the scorpionism rates among months.

The scorpionism trend gradually increased from April to September to reach its highest peak in September. Moreover, by increasing the age, scorpionism tends from its peak in the age group under 15 years, gradually achieving its minimum in the age group over 65.