Accidental Poisoning in Children – At Tertiary Care Unit

Abstract

Background: Poisoning is a very common emergency in the pediatric department which causes a lot of worry and anxiety to parents as well as doctors. The incidence type and nature of poisoning is influenced by various factors hence a study was proposed on poisoning to form treatment protocols. Aims and Objectives: To conduct a study on Accidental poisoning in children and to find out commonest poisoning, its route, type of poison with clinical features, mortality, and outcome of cases of accidental poisoning. Study design: Prospective observational study of all cases of poisoning. Material And Methods: Hundred children who were below 12 years of age who had accidental poisoning admitted in pediatric emergency department at Niloufer Hospital were taken for study from 2016 November to 2017 June. Results: out of 100 cases studied oral route (89%) parenteral route (11%), age distribution below 5 years were (67.6%), urban cases (71%) ,rural cases (29%) , time since poisoning within 6hours(81% ), after 6 hours of exposure(19%), commonest clinical features involved is vomiting (40%), kerosene was commonest type of poisoning with (44%), mortality was (2%). Conclusions: The oral route of poisoning was more common than parenteral route, commonest age group was toddlers, most of the patients were from urban population, most common poison being kerosene. The time taken to transfer patient from rural area was twice that of urban area, duration of stay for most patients was between 1 to 2 days, mortality in the study was (2%).