A descriptive study on fatal and non-fatal paediatric poisoning cases in a tertiary health care centre

Introduction: Accidental poisoning in children is a global problem. Most of the poisoning are unintentional and preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. In India, commonest agents of paediatric poisoning were kerosene, medicines, household cleaning products and pesticides. Objectives: To assess pattern of poisoning among paediatric age group in a tertiary health care centre. Materials and Method: A cross‑sectional study was conducted in a tertiary health care centre for a duration of one year. The children aged less than 18 years who were consumed or exposed to poisoning were included in the study. The data were collected in a structured clinical proforma after taking consent from parents. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics used for analysis. Results: Among 59 cases, 52.5% were males and the mean age was 8.17±5.42 years. Most of the poisoning occurred at home and common type of poisoning was kerosene, medicines and snake bite (20.3% each). About 71% were accidental in nature whereas 27% was suicidal in nature. In 84.7% cases mother was the first person to know about poisoning, 95% of cases discharged healthy and proportion of deaths was 3.4%. Conclusion: The paediatric posioiniong was more among the children aged >10 years. The common type of poisioning was kerosene, medicines and snake bite and most of them were accidental. Eventhough, the mortality proportion was less, but, almost one qaurter of them consumed poison for committing suicide which was a disturbing trend. So addressing this issue at large in schools and homes may decrease the trend of suicides among teenage children.