Abstract
Analgesics are one of the most commonly purchased and used OTC medication classes from pharmacies in the United States. Drug toxicity is a leading cause of injury death in the United States. Limited studies, if any, have examined the impact of specific OTC medication toxicities in the pediatric population. To examine the toxicity arising from the use of over-the-counter (OTC) analgesic medications in pediatric patients in Ohio. Data from National Poison Data System for Ohio was obtained for the past 5 years. This data was processed to focus on target populations; pediatrics defined as ages 0-17 years experiencing toxicities related to OTC analgesic medications. The data was categorized into three groups: 0-6 years old, 7-12 years old, and 13-17 years old and reported toxicity was studied based on medications used/given, reasoning for toxicity, and medical outcomes. Patients aged 0-6 years mainly experienced toxicities from acetaminophen (35%) and ibuprofen (52.7%), due to unintentional exposure (general misuse and therapeutic error; 74.2% and 25.4%, respectively), causing primarily minimal clinical effect (48.4%). Ages 7-12 experienced toxicities from acetaminophen (38.5%) and ibuprofen (44.9%) due to unintentional exposure therapeutic error (44.8%) and intentional suspected suicides (30.1%), causing mainly minimal clinical effects (35.5%) and no effect (23.4%). Pediatric ages 13-17 experienced toxicities due to ibuprofen (36.3%) and acetaminophen (38.9%), with primary reasoning of intentional suspected suicide (81.3%), causing medical outcomes of minor effect and no effect (38.2% and 31.2%, respectively). A chi-square test was performed to analyze correlation between case intention (unintentional or intentional) and age group. Proportion of intentional exposures differ by age [X2 (2, N = 18,766) = 14672, p < .0001]. Observations from this study underscore the importance of raising awareness about OTC analgesic toxicities which remain prominent in Ohio.
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