Al Ain: Public awareness appears to have been playing a lead role in curtailing accidental poisoning among children, a study revealed. It, however, listed Emirati children as a high-risk group.

The findings were based on more than 200 children under 10 years of age. These children were taken to the emergency departments of two major tertiary hospitals in Al Ain city for unintentional poisoning.

“Emirati children were twice as likely to suffer accidental poison ingestions compared with expatriate children,” said Dr Sulaiman Bharwani, Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the UAE University (UAEU).

The study was jointly conducted by Dr Bharwani and Dr Yasser Sharif from the Poison and Drug Information Centre in Abu Dhabi. It highlights the levels, scale, trends, and risk factors for childhood poisoning.

The experts said that accidental poisoning in childhood was a global problem, especially among children under six. They compared the latest findings with a 14-year-old study and noticed a drop in incidents.

“The accidental ingestions of household chemicals appears to have dropped significantly,” said the researchers.

They said that it could be a result of aggressive campaigns to raise awareness about the hazards of household chemicals, organised by the Poison and Drug Information Centre at the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (PDIC-HAAD).

Cases of intentional poisoning, contact skin poisoning and insect bites were not included in the study.

“The results showed that the annual incidence of unintentional poison ingestions in the UAE is 2.35 per 1,000 children 10 years or younger in age,” said Dr Bharwani.

The study also stressed the importance of creating awareness of the Poison and Drug Information Centre (PDIC) and its objectives to inform parents to prevent such accidents and the role it plays in responding and guiding distressed parents of children who accidentally swallow harmful substances.

“Such awareness will not only help the emergency doctors who treat such children but can make a significant impact in reducing parental concerns, emergency visits and hospital admissions and thereby reduce the overall health care costs associated with it,” Dr Bharwani said.

The findings of the study were recently published in Paediatric Emergency Care, a prestigious paediatric journal.