Children poisoning in Taiwan

Abstract

Poisoning is a well known cause of morbidity and mortality in children. In Taiwan, little information has been published regarding the status of pediatric poisoning exposures. To provide more information on pediatric poisoning exposures for the purpose of poison prevention, a retrospective study was designed and conducted to analyse the data of National Poison Centre (NPC), Taiwan. All telephone inquiries concerning poisoning exposures in those under 19 years of age, received by NPC-Taiwan from July 1985 through December 1993, were included in this study. The age, sex, reason for exposure, route of exposure, substances involved and clinical outcome of those telephone calls were then analyzed. A total of 5,812 inquiries concerning poisoning exposures in children were recorded. Male exposures were more prevalent than females (59%) Vs. 41%) Accidental exposures accounted for 77.7% of the cases and most were exposed by the oral route. Substances most frequently ingested were household products, benzodiazepines and pesticides. The data revealed a mortality rate of 1.4%. Accidental poisoning exposures from household products and drugs remain a significant problem for those younger than 6 years of age. Further education of parents and care takers and the employment of child-resistant containers are needed to prevent cases of pediatric poisoning. Reduction of amphetamine abuse in adolescents is also of major concern and deserves more attention.

A cross-sectional study of children with acute poisoning: A three-year retrospective analysis

“…The finding of more poisoning episodes in children under five years old was similarly reported in Nigeria and Taiwan province, China. [9,10] Other epidemiological studies of pediatric poisoning have demonstrated that the most common risk factors for poison exposure are young age and female gender, which are in agreement with our fi ndings. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Poisoning incidents can be categorized into intentional or unintentional types based on how they happened, but most of childhood poisonings are accidental in nature.…”

“…[9,10] This difference might be explained by the differences in study design and socio-cultural values. The finding of more poisoning episodes in children under five years old was similarly reported in Nigeria and Taiwan province, China.…”

“…In the current study, most episodes were unintentional similar to those reported by Paudyal et al [18] (unintentional poisoning 98.4%) and by authors from Taiwan province (77.7%). [10] Identifying children with intentional poisoning is crucial as this could be an indication of a serious psychosocial behavior or possibility of child abuse. Prescription drugs are the commonest causes of poisoning in our study unlike kerosene being the most common agent in other studies.…”

Profile of childhood poisoning at a tertiary care centre in North India

“…It is very likely that this reporting is an underestimate of the actual magnitude of this problem as many cases go unreported. 6 Various studies from India and abroad show that childhood poisoning is more common in males and similar pattern was observed in the present study (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). Children between 1-3 yr were most commonly involved in the present study, a pattern consistent with most of the other studies, 4-6, 12 a notable exception being Japan where infants are most commonly involved.…”

Determination of dimethoxyphenethylamine derivatives in urine by deuterium labeled internal standards

“…The abuse of psychoactive drugs from the phenylethylamine and phenylisopropylamine groups has become a very serious social problem in Taiwan over the last decade. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Unknown drugs are typically detected and identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) because this approach is highly sensitive and can separate organic compounds in complex mixtures. [23][24][25][26] The compounds are often derivatized on the amine to yield more specific fragmentation information.…”