Clinical profile and outcome of children presenting with poisoning or intoxication: a hospital-based study

Background: Poisoning is a common preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Most of the poisoning in children less than 5 years of age is accidental. Not much of Indian data is available particularly from this part of the country. So, authors conducted a retrospective hospital record-based study to know clinical profile and outcome of children presenting with poisoning in our set up. The objective was to study clinical profile, outcome of childhood poisoning and intoxication in Jammu District (Jammu and Kashmir) IndiaMethods: This was a retrospective hospital record-based study done in patients who were admitted in pediatric wards and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of SMGS Hospital Jammu with history of ingestion of poison or intoxication or envenomation from January 2017 to December 2017. The data collected was analyzed with SPSS 12.0 software. Demographic and etiological factors were retrospectively recorded and analyzed.Results: There were 227 children enrolled in study with an incidence of 0.99%. Male: female ratio was 1.2:1. Most of the children were asymptomatic and majority of them arrived to the hospital in less than 2 h. The majority of our patients 115 (50.66%) were in the 13-18 years age group. Organophosphorus poisoning was the commonest poisoning seen in 51 (57.30%) patients followed by snake bite 29 (55.77%), insect bite 17 (32.69%), Phenol 14 (77.78%), kerosene 11 (12.36%) and rat poison 10 (11.23%). Alcohol problem occurred in 9 (24.32%) cases. The most frequent cause of suicide attempt were school problems, followed by conflict in the family. Route of poisoning was ingestion in 173 (76.21%) cases followed by bites 53 (23.35%) and inhalation in 1 (0.44%) case. Vomiting 105 (46.25%) was the predominant clinical feature. Aspiration pneumonia 17 (43.59%) followed by respiratory failure 7 (17.95%) were the most common complications. During treatment 67 (27.91%) received gastric lavage and 28 (12.33%) received antidotes. Overall survival was 210 (92.51%), among remaining cases 2 (0.88%) cases died in hospital and 15 (6.61%) cases left against medical adviceConclusions: Parental health education will decrease the occurrence of childhood poisoning. Along with the parents and teachers, media also should take active steps to educate the rural population about the preventive measures from bite, stings and handling of poisonous agents.