Emergency Room Visits By Children Who Swallow Household Medicines Decreases

Parents are doing a better job of keeping the household medicines away from children. A new research reveals large decline in emergency room visits by children who swallowed medicine while unsupervised.

The study conducted by researchers from the federal Centers Disease Control and Prevention considered the countrywide representative data from 2004 o 2013.

The data contained emergency room visits of children under the age of 6 for bad reactions of drugs. The data was obtained from a government surveillance system.

Some of the prescription medicines consumed by children when unsupervised are opioids, anti-addiction drug buprenorphine, painkillers, anti-anxiety medicines and sedatives.

Between the years 2004 and 2013, there were approximately 640,000 emergency room visits, in which children were involved who had swallowed medicines unsupervised.

There were nearly 623,000 emergency room visits that involved medicine given to children by parents or other caretakers.

Since 2010, the emergency room visits for unsupervised medicines taken by children dropped drastically each following year, to nearly 60,000 visits in 2013.

The data shows that parents are now more cautious than earlier in keeping household medicines away from children.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

Source: Medindia