1. Acute Poisoning in Children in Bahia, Brazil
- Author
-
Dilton Rodrigues Mendonça MSc, Marta Silva Menezes PhD, Marcos Antônio Almeida Matos PhD, Daniel Santos Rebouças MD, Jucelino Nery da Conceição Filho BS, Reginara Souza de Assis MD, and Leila Carneiro
- Subjects
Pediatrics ,RJ1-570 - Abstract
Acute poisoning is a frequent accident in childhood, particularly in children under 4 years of age. This was a descriptive study with data collected from standardized forms of the Poison Control Center and patient record charts. All the cases of acute poisoning in children aged 0 to 14 years during the period 2008 to 2012 were selected. The variables studied comprised characteristics of the events and toxic agents, clinical development, and outcome. A total of 657 cases of acute poisoning, with higher frequency in the age-group from 1 to 4 years (48.7%) and male sex (53.4%), were recorded. The occurrences were accidental in 92% of the cases, and 5.8% were due to suicide attempts. Among the toxic agents, medications (28.5%), venomous animals (19.3%), nonvenomous animals (10%), household cleaning products (9.0%), and raticide agents (8.7%) predominated. The majority of cases were characterized as light (73.5%) and around 18% required hospitalization, and there was low lethality (0.5%).
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF