A Pilot Study for Pesticide Poisoning Symptoms and Information on Pesticide Use among Farmers

Department of Preventive Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine *Department of Preventive Medicine, Keimyung University College of Medicine **Agro-Material Safety Evaluating Division, Department of Agro-Food Safety, National Academy of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration(Received January 7, 2011/Revised February 18, 2011/Accepted February 18, 2011)ABSTRACTThis study aimed to determine the feasibility of survey questionnaires for pesticide poisoning. We conducted a pilotstudy to develop a questionnaire for evaluating pesticide poisoning symptoms and to examine the validity of self-reported information for individual pesticides used. In December 2010 we interviewed 20 farmers with self-reportedpesticide poisoning histories residing in Gyeonggi Province. For validity of pesticide information, the purchased pes-ticide lists from the agricultural cooperative federation were compared with individual self-reported pesticides used.Neurological symptoms were the most common among clinical symptoms related to pesticide poisoning, followed bygastrointestinal, dermal and eye symptoms. Insecticides were the main causative pesticide class for poisoning. Twentyone major symptoms were selected for screening for acute pesticide poisoning in a field study based on the pilot resultsand literature reviews. Substantial under-reporting was found in data on self-reported individual pesticides used (9.2%),as well as low accuracy (36%) compared with their actual purchase lists. In this pilot study, we suggest the selectedsymptom lists may apply to a field survey of pesticide poisoning. However, the self-reported information on individualpesticides may not be valid and alternative methods need to be developed.