As more Americans every year take prescription drugs, so too are more children at risk for accidental drug poisoning. A newly published study from researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center analyzed data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers to draw its conclusions about this rising concern. Between 2001 and 2008, the number of pediatric emergency room visits for pharmaceutical poisoning rose 28 percent, with admissions rising 36 percent. The data looked at the emergency room visits of 544,133 children, less than five years old, who had ingested medications. Of these, 453,559 ingested a single medication, allowing the source of their poisoning to be traced and the results of the poisoning to be accurately recorded.
Prescription medications were behind 55 percent of the ER visits and 76 percent of the hospital admissions studied. Overdoses of prescription opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone, rose 101 percent during the years of the study. Fifty-five percent of the cases involved children finding and taking a prescription medication on their own, while 40 percent were self-administered over-the-counter medications. About 95 percent of the cases were the result of self-ingestion, leaving only about 5 percent of the visits and admissions to dosing errors by parents. These findings reveal that the biggest concern for children’s safety around pharmaceuticals is medication not being stored properly in the home.
One of the authors of the study, Randall Bond, is the medical director of the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center. He says that as obesity rates spike, especially in younger populations, adults take blood pressure and diabetes medication earlier than they used to. This means more young parents with more medication. In 1998, a study found that about 50 percent adults had taken at least one prescription medicine in the week before they were surveyed, while 7 percent of respondents had taken five or more prescription medications in that week. When a new group was asked the same question in 2005, 55 percent of adults had taken at least one prescription in the previous week, and 11 percent had taken five or more. Also, as adolescents and teens are increasingly prescribed drugs for ADHD and diabetes, it isn’t just Mom and Dad but big brother and sister with more prescriptions.
“The problem of pediatric medication poisoning is getting worse, not better,” said Bond. “Prevention efforts of parents and caregivers to store medicines in locked cabinets, or up and away from children, continue to be crucial. [...] “However, the largest potential benefit would come from packaging design changes that reduce the quantity a child could quickly and easily access in a self-ingestion episode, like flow restrictors on liquids and one-at-a-time tablet dispensing containers.”
Bond is presenting the findings of his study on Tuesday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
