Patterns of Acute Poisoning in Children in Al Ain city (UAE)

Introduction: Acute poisonings in children cause considerable morbidity and health resources use worldwide. It is a common presenting problem to paediatric emergency rooms (ER). This study was designed to describe the pattern of acute childhood poisoning in Al Ain.

Method: This is a retrospective study. It is involving children up to 13 year of age who attended our ER with acute poisoning between 1/6/2011 and 31/8/2014. We extracted data from the hospital patient electronic medical notes. We used electronic Word proforma and Excel to collect data. SPSS software was used for statistical analysis.

Results: 475 children were recruited. The majority of the substances involved were pharmacological drugs (40%) and household chemicals (29%). In 78.5% cases, the culprit substance was not stored in the original container. Most children (68%) were asymptomatic. No contact was made with a poisoning center in 92% of the cases.

For children with of acute non-caustic poisoning, charcoal was administered to 143 cases. 39.1% out of them received charcoal within one hour of ingestion of a substance. Gastric lavage was the second choice for decontamination (24%). Approximately 47.6% of the children were admitted, mainly for observations (77% stayed up to 24 hours). No reports of deaths from acute poisoning during the study. Diagnostic upper gastro-intestinal (GI) endoscopy was indicated in (11.9%) of the caustic poisoning cases but none had the procedure.

Conclusion and recommendations: Acute poisoning substances pattern in Al Ain is not different from that in other countries of similar economic status. Pharmacological drugs and household chemicals represent the majority of the cases. This pattern has not changed for approximately two decades in comparison to previous data. We advocate education campaigns aiming to increase the general public awareness of the problem and to eradicate the habit of storing potential poisoning substances in secondary containers. There is a need to establish 24 hours poisoning center and review the criteria for diagnostic upper-GI in caustic-poisoning.