Pattern of Acute Poisoning Among Pediatric Patients Admitted to Poison Control Center of Ain Shams University Hospitals

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Clinical Toxicology Department, El-Menshawy General Hospitals, El Gharbeya, Egypt.

2 Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt.

3 Poison Control Center, Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Scientific background: Acute pediatric poisoning is considered as a major health problem in many countries and represents a significant burden for emergency room visits and hospitalization. The best way to fix this problem is to diagnose, treat and prevent it from happening again. Aim of the work: Determination the pattern and outcome of acute poisoning of children who admitted to Poison Control Center of Ain Shams University Hospitals (PCCASUH). Subjects and methods: It is a cross sectional descriptive study included 304 acutely poisoned children aged 1 to 18 years old from both gender who admitted to PCC-ASUH during the period from June 2020 to November 2020. In all children, the data that had been studied included: sociodemographic, poisoning profile, clinical examination, investigations, treatment measures, admission place and patients’ outcome. Results: The study documented that toxicity of children less than 4 years showed the highest percentage (41.1%). The oral route was the major route of exposure (97.3%). The most common exposure was pesticide poisoning (23%), antipsychotic drugs (20.1%) and substances of abuse (17.1%). There was a highly significant difference between studied groups as regard gender, age groups and type of poisonous agents and a highly significant relation between the mode of poisoning and gender. There was a highly significant relation between the outcome and age groups. Conclusion and recommendations: toxicity in children less than 4 years showed the highest percentage. The most typically included agents were pesticides and pharmaceuticals agents. Working on a trial for raising the community awareness programs about poisons’ exposure hazards as it is a very crucial strategy in that emergencies’ prevention.
Received in original form: 12 November 2021 Accepted in a final form: 30 December 2021

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