ABSTRACT
Background: Poisoning is an important emergency in pediatric age groups throughout the world. The causes and types of poisoning vary from place to place in the world and even within the same country, also depending upon factors such as education, demography, socioeconomic factors, customs, and local belief.
Materials and Methods: The current study is a prospective cross-sectional study, conducted on young patients (under 18 years old) presented to National Environmental and Clinical Toxicological Research Center (NECTR), Cairo University over 3 months during the COVID episode. Data were analyzed for; demographic data of the participating children, manner of toxicity, place of exposure, type of poison, its availability to the child, the form of poison, duration between exposure and presentation, the first aid that may be done to the child, associated morbidity, history of medications, Severity and mortality rate of each poison detected by poison severity scoring (PSS) and rate of admission and outcome.
Results: The current study revealed that accidental toxicity (84.6%) is still more common than intentional toxicity (15.4%), with negligence being the most probable precipitating factor and the incidence increased in children with educated parents. Medications and household products were the most common attributed poisons. In addition, the risk for ICU admission was significantly higher in adolescents and children with intentional poisoning.
Conclusion: Pediatric poisoning is an emergency condition with younger children are highly susceptible to accidental exposure, however, with older ages, the incidence of intentional poisoning and risk of bad outcome increases.