Epidemiologic study of poisoning in children admitted at Shaheed Beheshti Hospital of Kashan during 1997-2001

Poisoning is one of the significant causes of mortality and hospitalization in children. This problem occurs mostly under the age 2 and is due to accidental ingestion of drug and poisons. Since there is not any study in this field in Kashan, this study was done to evaluate the epidemiology of poisoning in children admitted at Kashan's Shaheed Beheshti Hospital during 1997-2001. This descriptive study was conducted on 119 hospitalized children due to poisoning. Patient's data such as age, sex, type of toxin, living site and clinical findings were recorded in preplanned questionnaires, then they were analyzed with c 2 test. The frequency of poisoning was 1.03%. 66.4% of the patients were boys. The most common age of children with poisoning was 1 to 4 years. The most frequent types of intoxication was drugs (42%), kerosene (31.1%) and food poisoning (10.9%). 68% of children were from urban and the others from rural areas. The most common clinical symptoms appeared in gasterointestinal tract. However, in Kerosene poisoning, the respiratory symptoms (70.2%) and in the drug intoxication the neurological symptoms (80%) were predominant. Although the frequency of poisoning is low in children, it is more common in boys, children under 5 and with drugs. So the preventive measures are necessary in this field