Veterinary and human toxicology
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Comparative Study
Epidemiology of children poisoning: comparison between telephone inquiries and emergency room visits.
We studied 674 telephone inquiries to the Poison Information Centre and 532 Emergency Room (ER) visits due to suspected poisonings in 1018 children below the age of 16 y and living at Trieste. The cases were prospectively recorded during 1985-1989. ⋯ Among children admitted to the hospital ER, 22.2% were more than 10-y old, and of these 79.7% were confirmed poisonings. This study demonstrated the need to take account of both Poison Control Centre and ER data to get reliable information on the occurrence of poisonings in children.