Children poisoning – experiences of Poisons Information Centre in Prague

Overview

Poisonings of children represent majority in consultations provided by the Czech Toxicological Information Centre (TIC) (63.3% of inquiries regard the age group under 18 years). The group of toddler is the most threatened, because they apply their typical characteristic to examine objects in their surroundings by placing them in their mouths. Intellectual skills of children of this age group do not allow to recognize the danger of such situations. TIC positively evaluates trend registered in post-revolutionary years, when not only the total number of consultations is increasing, but also the portion of inquiries from laics exhibits similar trend. This allows to solve the situation in time, to prevent the inadequate therapeutic interventions in some cases and on the other hand, to solve a serious case after the realized consultation adequately with high probability of effective first aid, transportation to a medical facility and adequate treatment.

Keywords:
child poisonings – Toxicological Information Centre – first aid