[Intoxication due to pesticides in the central northern region of the State of Paraná, Brazil - 2002 to 2011].

This research is based on epidemiological records of toxicological occurrences in individual records of investigation into pesticide poisoning at the Maringá Intoxication Control Center at the Regional University Hospital of Maringá. The intoxications in patients poisoned from 2002 to 2011, in towns that comprise the Central Northern Paraná Geographic Mesoregion where Maringá is located, were taken into consideration in this study. As a result, it was established that approximately 67.12% of those poisoned were males, the age groups most affected are 20-29 years old and 30-39 years old. Suicide attempts appear as the main motivation for hospitalization (possibly disguising the chronic intoxication), and mainly insecticides and herbicides are involved in the poisonings, with 62.60% and 26%, respectively. Lastly, the urgent need for public health policies in to reduce this statistic immediately is self-evident, as these poisonings are the ones recorded, as those resulting from food poisoning are not being computed.