Drug Poisoning

The Most Common Cause of Referrals to Poisoning Departments in Treatment Centers

Medical drugs are among the most dangerous poisoning materials in a household. Lack of adequate attention to the dosage of drugs taken, taking drugs in darkness while being drowsy and self-medication can all lead to drug poisoning.

According to WebDa, according to what Food and Drug Administration of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences has announced, in addition to avoiding self-medication, it should be considered that high dosage of some drugs, which might appear safe and not risky, can be fatal for the individual, especially for the kids and the elderly.

The most common reason of poisoning in the world is taking drugs more than the prescribed amount for the treatment. 70% of poisoning incidences reported to the Country’s Drugs and Poisons Information Center are concerned with drug poisoning. Annually, almost 60% of phone calls in the Country’s Drugs and Poisons Information Center in Iran are regarding drug poisoning, which is indeed a considerable and significant amount. The high prevalence of drug poisoning is approved by the statistics of hospital referrals of poisoned patients in the country.

In the statistics released by the Country’s Drugs and Poisons Information Center, still a high percentage of poisonings, that is about 56% of the total recorded incidences of poisoning in these centers, goes to drug toxicity.

Considering the statistics of the Forensic Medicine Organization of the Country regarding drug toxicity casualties in the recent five years, each year, on average, 550-780 individuals have lost their lives as to poisoning with their drugs and medicine.

Drug toxicity in kids mostly occurs accidentally as to the kid’s curiosity or parents’ mistakes. Almost 80% of the poisoned kids referred to treatment centers as to their accidental consumption of medicine. 65-85% of incidences referred to the hospital had been among the intentional poisonings. While the first rank of intentional poisoning incidences belongs to drug toxicities followed by poisoning with pesticides.

To Prevent Drug Poisoning in Kids, the following points must be taken into account:

v  If you have a kid less than five years old, make sure to keep all your drugs in top cabinets and closets not reachable to kids and equipped with a lock.

v  While your kid is sick, be careful not to give the kid a repetitive or higher dosage than prescribed. For instance, to decrease the fever in kids, give them Acetaminophen in accordance with their weight and age and with  doctors and pharmacists’ consultation. Excess amount of Acetaminophen for treatment can cause poisoning.

v  Keep household’s consumptive drugs out of reach of the kids. Avoid having any medicine in your purse or hand bags to prevent your kid from consuming them.

v  Do not take medicine while your kids are watching as they imitate adult behavior and might put the drugs in their mind in the absence of their adults.

v  If you are giving medicine to your kids, make them understand that this is a drug. Never use such words as food, candy or chocolate for the medicine.

v  Keep all drugs specially the tasty ones out of reach for your kids. It is probable that they might attempt to take them in your absence or negligence.

v  Kids are curious. It is probable that they attempt to taste or swallow the drugs while the elderlies in the family are taking their medicine. Hence, to avoid drug poisoning in your beloved kids, ask your elderlies and parents to keep their drugs out of reach for the kids.

v  Keep the drugs in their initial packaging to be able to give correct information to the doctor about the drug that is taken in case of any toxicity.

In case anybody in the family is under addiction recovery, strictly avoid your kids to have any access to those addiction treatment drugs such as methadone tablets or syrup. There has been many cases of death in kids and even adults as to keeping methadone syrup in the fridge, specifically as to changing the medicine’s bottle with other medicine bottles or even other drink bottles and their consequent accidental consumption by others. In recent four years, methadone syrup alone has led to 11,000 incidences of poisoning in the country. Meanwhile, more than 200 incidences of death have been caused by methadone which 11% of it has occurred in kids.

It is clear that these methadone-driven cases of death in these kids has only been as to the ignorance and negligence in their parents and relatives, using resistant containers and transferring the medicine and keeping it in the bottle of other medicine or drinks, which could have been easily prevented by those families.