Abstract
Background and Objectives: According to the high prevalence of drug poisoning in children, a study on demographic aspects and common causes of poisoning and accessibility of drugs was carried out in Tabriz Children Medical Center.
Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study of data collected from 334 medical files of patients, who had been admitted due to drug poisoning from Aug 2000 to Mar 2004.
Results: This study showed that the most common causative agents in order of decreasing prevalence are: benzodiazepines, non steroidal anti inflammatory drug(NSAID), tricyclic antidepressants as drug group and opium and ibuprofen as single drug (p<0.001).
79.6% of all poisoning cases were accidental (p<0.001), and 81.5% of them had less than 6 years of age(p<0.001), but there was no meaningful difference for sex(p<0.7).
Conclusions: The high prevalence of poisoning with benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants shows their excessive consumption in our community which is due to increased incidence of depression and other psychiatric disorders, besides, the carelessness of families to keep the drugs out of reach of children may play a role.
This fact that opium is the second most common single drug, and opioids which are in 5 th prevalent drug group that cause poisoning in children, shows that illegal drug addiction might be common in our community and their availability of those agents for our children.