engleski

Poisoning in children- 30- Year track record in Children`s Hospital Zagreb

The frequency and causes of children's acute poisoning in Croatia are not sufficiently know. Assessments are made based on the hospital track records on morbidity and range between d 2-5% in some institutions, and up to 9% of all hospitalized patients in children’s age. We are presenting results of monitoring the children hospitalized at the Department of Clinical Toxicology, Children's Hospital Zagreb, in period from 1982-2011 (30 years). We monitored total number of children hospitalized due to acute poisoning, a proportion of intentional poisoning, breakdown by age and gender, and type of means that lead to poisoning. Total number of children hospitalized due to acute poisoning in the reported period was 6415. In 91% of the cases involved poisoning was accidental, the average age of patients was 5 years, 55% of poisoned children were boys. Intentional poisoning account for 9% of all intoxications, average age of patients was 16 years, 82% of the cases involved girls. According to the type of intoxication, most frequent was poisoning with drugs (49%), followed by alcohol intoxications (27%), chemicals (13%), pesticides (5%), inhalation agents – gas (4%), herbs (1%) and other (1%). Poisoning in children’s age is usually accidental and happens at home in more than 90% of all cases. Monitoring of frequency and causes related to poisoning enables objective assessment of children’s poisoning and planning of preventive measures. For that reason it is necessary to establish a national register of the poisoning in children.

acute poisoning ; monitoring programme ; Republic of Croatia

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