Has the pattern of acute poisoning among children in Albania changed?

The prevalence and type of poisoning vary in different parts of the world and may change overtime, that’s why epidemiological surveillance is very important to evaluate the extent of the problem. This is a retrospective study. Included in this study are all children hospitalized with poisonings in our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) during 10 years: 2005-2014. We evaluated the epidemiological data of our country, the trend and the prognosis of poisoning. During the study period out of 5,714 children admitted in our PICU, 5% (280 cases) were poisoning. Trend of poisonings during 10 years has changed significantly. Comparing the two periods: 2005-2009 and 2010-2014 we estimated statistically significant reduction in the second period for the total number of poisonings (P=0.0001) and significant reduction for drugs, pesticides, hydrocarbons (P=0:05; P=0.0005; P=0.033). Since drugs constitute the main cause of poisoning in our study (50% of cases) we evaluated their trend between two periods. We noticed a sharp increase for Paracetamol P = 0:08, χ2 = 3063; significant reduction for antipsychotics P=0.02, χ2=5,042; reduction for Naphazoline P = 0:22, χ2 = 1.455; and increase for Benzodiazepine P=0:22, χ2=1.455. A new problematic was methadone poisoning. Mortality occupies 2.5% of cases. Comparing mortality rate between the two periods it wasn’t observed significant mortality reduction, P=0.82, OR=1.186; 95% CI (0.2652 to 5.3039). Demographic change as well economic and cultural levels have impacted the epidemiological profile of acute poisoning in children in our country. With the large immigrant movement in Europe during last years, we think that even in other countries, characteristics of poisoning may have changed.