Painkiller poisonings among kids on the rise: Researchers

New York: The proportion of high-strength painkiller poisonings among children which results in emergency hospital admissions has increased, researchers have revealed. The study involving more than 200,000 US paediatric cases of pain-relief misuse, abuse or self-harm highlights how the opioid crisis is affecting young people. The results show that although the number of incidents reported overall has dropped since 2005, the threat to life is rising.

According to the researchers, the proportion of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admissions rose by more than a third during the study period from 5,203 (6.6 percent), out of 80,141 reports of poisonings between 2005 and 2009, to 4,586 (9.6 percent) out of 48,435 between 2015 to 2018. The focus has largely been on adults so this study set out to investigate the impact on children, specifical trends in admissions to PICU. The researchers consulted the National Poison Data System database for accidental or deliberate incidents of opioid exposure involving babies and children up to age 19. (IANS)

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