Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turk Pediatri Arsivi, cilt.42, sa.3, ss.103-106, 2007 (SCI-Expanded)
Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the demographic characteristics, the types of utilized drugs and the hospital costs of the drug intoxication cases who attended to the Gazi University Medical Faculty Pediatric Emergency Service, to determine the burden on the national economy and to plan the prevention. Material and Method: The epichrises of the cases attended because of drug intoxication were evaluated using the hospital records and the hospital costs were evaluated using the Avicenna Hospital Information Management System. Results: The adolescent cases are those evaluated by child psychiatry and thought to be suicideal attempts and the young children cases are those evaluated as accidental drug intoxication. The total two year's hospital cost of the cases is 45608.0 YTL. The mean hospital cost of the suicidal attempt cases is 405.1±240.8 YTL and the mean cost of the accidental poisoning cases is 245.7±169.0 YTL (p<0.001). Conclusions: The results of our study shows that education is the most effective method to develop prevention principles for childhood intoxications and to decrease hospital costs; thus, the burden of childhood intoxications on the national economy will decrease Furthermore we think that developing a country policy including the aggravation of punishments is required to prevent poisoningof children.