Unintentional Poisoning in Children Admitted to Tabriz Pediatric Hospital

Background: Poisoning is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Medicines and household cleaning products are responsible for the majority of cases. The aim of the present study is to analyze poisoning cases presenting to Tabriz children hospital. Methods: The present descriptive cross-sectional study, of all poisoning cases presenting to the children hospital during January 2014 to July 2015 and children from one to twelve years of age were included. The data was collected through referring to all parents of the children and using a questionnaire that included demographic and poisoning characteristic information. The demographic features included gender, age, place of residency and type of poisons was investigated. Also parents were interviewed by using structured questionnaire containing information on socio-demographic factors, parental smoking, parental education level, child's behavior, and storage practices of hazardous substances of caregivers inside homes. Results: Children poisoning was common among low educated family with parental smoker and was higher for boys (59%) than girls (41%). However, there was no mortality. Poisoning was unintentional and most of the poisoned cases, 63 (61.7%) of the children involved were below the age of four years i.e., between 1 and 3 years of age. Pharmaceutical products were the commonest agents accounting for 50% of all cases; followed by pesticides (15.7%), poisonous mushrooms (13.7%), Petroleum products (10.8%) and household detergents (9.8%). Conclusion: Improvement in the socioeconomic status of parents and health education on proper/ safe storage of medicines, chemicals and household detergents will help in reducing the incidence of poisoning.