• Meral M Patel, Curtis D Travers, Jana A Stockwell, Robert J Geller, Pradip P Kamat, and Jocelyn R Grunwell.
• 1Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Atlanta, GA. 2Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA. 3Georgia Poison Center, Atlanta, GA.
• Pediatr Crit Care Me. 2017 Jul 1; 18 (7): e281-e289.

ObjectivesAcute intoxications in children account for 4.6% of annual admissions to the PICU. We aimed to describe the interventions and monitoring required for children admitted to the PICU following intoxications with the ultimate goal of determining patient and intoxication characteristics associated with the need for PICU interventions.DesignRetrospective review of prospectively collected data from Virtual Pediatric Systems, LLC.SettingUnited States PICUs participating in the Virtual Pediatric Systems database from 2011 to 2014.PatientsLess than or equal to 18 years old admitted to a PICU with a diagnostic code for poisoning, ingestion, intoxication, or overdose.InterventionsNone.Measurements And Main ResultsIn total, 12,021 patients were included with a median PICU length of stay of 0.97 days (interquartile range, 0.67-1.60). Seventy-eight percent of the intoxications were intentional. The top five classes of medications ingested were unknown substances (21.6%), antidepressants (11.5%), other chemicals (10.7%), analgesics (7.3%), and antihypertensives (6.2%). Seventy-six (0.61%) patients died. Any of the interventions reported in the Virtual Pediatric Systems database were performed in only 29.1% of the total cases.ConclusionsThe majority of cases (70.9%) admitted to the PICU following an intoxication did not undergo any significant intervention. Future studies should focus on distinguishing patient and intoxication characteristics associated with need for PICU intervention to optimize patient safety and minimize resource burden.

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