1. Acute Poisoning in Children in Bahia, Brazil
- Author
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Dilton Rodrigues Mendonça, Marcos Almeida Matos, Reginara Souza de Assis, Marta Silva Menezes, Daniel Santos Rebouças, Jucelino Nery da Conceição Filho, and Leila Carneiro
- Subjects
Pediatrics ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Poison control ,Suicide prevention ,Occupational safety and health ,general pediatrics ,03 medical and health sciences ,Adolescent medicine ,0302 clinical medicine ,030225 pediatrics ,Injury prevention ,Medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,adolescent medicine ,business.industry ,lcsh:RJ1-570 ,lcsh:Pediatrics ,medicine.disease ,Poison control center ,allergy/immunology ,Acute toxicity ,critical care ,Accidental ,Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health ,Original Article ,Medical emergency ,medical education ,business - 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
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