Objectives-To identify child or family related risk factors for unintentional childhood poisoning in Greece and to explore whether product specific poisonings might have special features that make them amenable to preventive interventions. Setting-A case-control study was undertaken in Athens, Greece in 1995. Cases were 100 consecutive children brought with poisoning to the emergency clinics of the two university affiliated children's hospitals. For every case two age, gender, and hospital matched controls were chosen from among children brought to the outpatient clinics of these hospitals on the same date. Methods-All children and their guardians were interviewed by the same person using a standard questionnaire that covered demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral, and past injury characteristics. Information was also obtained concerning type and conditions of poisoning for cases. Statistical analysis was undertaken by modeling the data using conditional logistic regression. Results-Socioeconomic factors were not important risk indicators in these data but children living with other than both parents were at increased risk (odds ratio (OR) = 4 7, p = 0 08), as were children with a history of previous poisoning that required medical care (OR = 5-1, p = 0-05). Unintentional poisonings caused by chewing or swallowing cigarettes were concentrated in families where both parents were smokers.Conclusions-Absence of a parent appears to be associated with increased likelihood of childhood poisoning. The importance of product accessibility is underlined by the concentration of tobacco poisoning among children of parents who were both smokers. In the cultural context of this study, sociodemographic factors do not appear to represent demonstrable risk factors.Instead, control of childhood poisoning should be concentrated on safe packaging, storage, and disposal of potentially hazardous products.(Injury Prevention 1996; 2: [208][209][210][211]

Unintentional childhood poisoning further reflects an interaction between inappropriate storage of consumer products and suboptimal supervision during the housekeeping hours of the day.

The distribution of information on fractures in responding urban and rural probands. Both sexes from each area are grouped tcgether The percentage offractures from each source of information is given. a forgotten fracture. This means that all studies on fracture prevalence must be based on some kind of fracture documentation rather than proband memory only.

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Background In Greece the expense of public pharmaceuticals (medicines prescribed by hospitals and public insurance funds) in 2009 was 5.1 billion corresponding to 2.4% of GNP, while the corresponding average rate for OECD countries was 1.5%. In 2012 the target is 2.88 billion. In addition, following the country’s enrolment in the financial stability mechanism in 2010, the NHS (National Health System) was substantially enlarged because of the increased demand for public health system services while simultaneously there were cuts in NHS financing due to austerity measures. Purpose To record and evaluate the pharmaceutical expenses due to the outpatients covered by Social welfare and the political refugees which all were served by the paediatric hospital pharmacy during 2011 and the first half of 2012. Materials and Methods Information was acquired from the hospital pharmacy computerised data system. ResultsDuring 2011,1250 prescriptions covered by welfare insurance were dispensed, of which 91% concerned children of Greek citizenship, and 9% immigrant children with political refugee documentation (mainly from Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Syria). The total cost was 113,525 euro. The first semester of 2012 830 prescriptions were dispensed costing 96,180 euro of which 86.5% were for children of Greek citizenship and the other 13.5% was for children with refugee status. Conclusions The pharmaceutical expenses concerning children covered by the welfare system and refugee children are increasing rapidly (especially for refugee children) Given the current crisis in Greece, we urgently have to devise an effective policy to control the increasing pharmaceutical expenditure. No conflict of interest.