Population Attributable Risk of Unintentional Poisoning in Iranian Children

Abstract

Background: It is introduced that unintentional childhood poisoning can be as result of child home environment and characteristics of parents. This study aimed at quantifying the adjusted population attributable risk percentage of risk factor of unintentional childhood poisoning. Materials and Methods: The hospital based case- control included 140 consecutive poisoned children who admitted to the Loghman Hospital between March 2013 and July 2014 in Tehran- Iran. The cases were matched with 280 control based on age (within a calliper of six month), gender, and date of hospital attendance. A standardized questionnaire including characterises of unintentional poisoning and its risk factors was completed in a structured interview for cases and controls. We estimated the adjusted odds ratios (OR) and population attributable risks (PAR) of unintentional childhood poisoning, PAR is proportion of poisoning that could have been avoided by the intervention on the modifiable risk factors. Results: Narcotic poisoning was most common type of poisoning among cases (58.6%) and among them accidental methanol ingestion was most (74.7%). The adjusted PARs for lack of attention to labels of poisoning products and availability to them were 54% and 41% respectively, also these figures for children with addicted parents and paternal smoking were 57% and 54% for, respectively. Conclusion: Children with addicted parents were more vulnerable for unintentional poisoning. For substantial reduction of unintentional poisoning, the preventive interventions should focus on modification of child's home environment, improvement of safety behaviours and health literacy of parents, especially in addicted parents.