Epidemiological and Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Children with Acute Poisoning in Northeast of Iran

Introduction:Acute Poisoning in the developed countries include about 2% of all childhood deaths and more than 5% cause of death in the developing countries. Poisoning usually is defined as taking a substance which can cause an organism becoming injured. The purpose of this study was to identify sociological factors that are important in improving prevention, prognosis, and management of poisoning. Methods: This retrospective evaluated 1200 children in the pediatric ward of the 22 Bahman hospital, Gonabad, Iran, from March 2015 to July 2018. The information about Children was recorded by individual examination of the files in standardized forms including epidemiological and demographic features for statistical analysis and data were analyzed by using the U Test Chi square, Pearson correlation analysis and variance analysis in SPSS Version 21.0. Results: Acute poisoning included 2.3% of referring causes with mean age 3.7 ± 1.3 years. The mean age of poisoned children was significantly lower than other children (p value = 0/002). The majority of cases were accidental poisonings with opium (ICD-10 T40.0X1) and methadone (ICD-10 T40.3X1). Most common symptoms were neurological disorders, vomiting, tachypnea and tachycardia.Common clinical symptoms in children diagnosed with poisoning include: Neurological symptoms including seizures, hallucinations, drowsiness, decreased level of consciousness and confusion (50%), nausea and vomiting (25%), tachypnea and tachycardia (7.1%). Respiratory depression, meiotic pupil, shortness of breath, cough, tears and hallucinations (3.6%) due to referring severe toxic patients to more equipped center no death was recorded in our center. Conclusion: Acute poisoning is one of the most abudant emergencies in children. This study with identifying epidemiological and demographic factors of acute poisoning in children would help to improve prevention, and management of future programs.