title: Accidental ingestions of oral prescription drugs: a multicenter survey.
abstract: Accidental ingestion of oral prescription drugs by children under age five continues to be a public health problem. A telephone survey of 1,866 ingestion incidents reported to nine poison control centers was conducted in the spring of 1986. Accidental ingestion occurred most often with a two-year-old child (42 per cent) in their own home (82 per cent). Thirty-five per cent of the toxic drugs ingested at home belonged to someone other than the immediate family, most often a grandparent. Toxic drugs were more often out of their usual storage location and in non-child-resistant prescription packaging, a nonprescription container, or in no container. Twenty-two per cent of all child-resistant packages were non-functional. Overall, at least 61 per cent of all medications had no child-resistant barrier at the time of ingestion. Accessible storage locations such as the kitchen counter, table top, or top of a dresser or bedside table greatly increased the risk of accidental ingestion. These results suggest the need for effective child-resistant packaging that is easier for all adults to use.
authors.affiliation: US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Directorate for Health Sciences, Washington, DC 20207.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Jacobson
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Rock
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Cohn
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Litovitz
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003257:Consumer Product Safety / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D004349:Drug Packaging; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic; D011041:Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D014481:United States