Activated charcoal: the untold story

Abstract

Introduction. To identify the prevalence and appropriateness of prescribing activated charcoal in the management of acute poisoning and to document patient compliance with treatment. Methods. A prospective study was conducted, between October 1998 and September 1999, on patients attending our accident and emergency department, with a history of overdose. Overdoses were classified as potentially toxic or non-toxic according to the history and/or information received from the National Poisons Information Service. Results. Two hundred and seventy five patients presented following overdose; 17% within one hour, 102 were prescribed charcoal (37.1%) but of these, 40 (39%) refused it, and of the 62 patients (61%) who accepted charcoal only 15 (24.2%) took all that was prescribed. Patients were 5.4 times more likely to take charcoal if they had taken a potentially toxic overdose. Of those who presented within one hour and were judged to have taken a potentially toxic overdose, only three patients took the full-prescribed amount. Conclusion. We report a substantially greater proportion of patients (39%) refusing charcoal than previously reported (9.9%). The widespread availability of TOXBASE© should help redress this discrepancy.