Introduction
Accidental poisoning is a leading cause of unintentional injuries among children in developing countries. The overall aspect of this unintentional poisoning is poorly understood in Bangladesh. The objectives of this study were 1) to explore the socio-demographic factors and circumstantial context of accidental poisoning and 2) the prevalence of the type of substances causing it.
Methods
A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2019 and February 2020 at a tertiary level hospital of the capital city Dhaka in Bangladesh. Children under 10 years of age admitted to the hospital with accidental poisoning were enrolled in this study. Parents of hospitalized children were interviewed face-to-face using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.
Results
A total of 223 children were recruited in this study. Children between 2 to 5 years (60%), male (61%), and children with agile or aggressive behaviour (65.5%) were among the prevalent victims. Most cases (65%) occurred in a nuclear family setting. Most mothers (85%) of these children were non-working, and most incidents took place in parents’ homes (~82%). Nearly 70% of the poisoning incidents took place in parents' presence, and over half of these occurred in the bedroom. Kerosene was the prevalent cause (33%) of accidental poisoning while insecticide/pesticide ranked second (26.5%) followed by medicines (17%) and household chemicals (12). In one-third (31.4%) cases, poisoning chemicals were stored in soft-drinks bottles, while two-thirds (67.3%) were kept in containers other than original ones. Although over 80% of parents knew that chemicals could be harmful to the children if they were ingested, most of them did not take safety measures.
Conclusion
In this present study, we found that preschool-aged children were more victims of accidental poisoning, primarily by ingesting kerosene. A majority of the incidents occurred in the bedroom while parents were present at home. Our study findings would serve as a baseline for designing future intervention studies and policies.