Emergency visits for unsupervised pediatric medication exposures decrease in US
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Key takeaways:
- From 2009 to 2020, emergency department visits for unsupervised pediatric medication exposures decreased by nearly half.
- There was a 65.6% increase in visits due to herbal or alternative remedies.
The number of emergency department visits for unsupervised pediatric medication exposures decreased by nearly half between 2009 and 2020, CDC researchers reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“In CDC’s Medication Safety Program, we routinely monitor trends in emergency department visits for unintentional medication overdoses among children aged 5 years or younger, since it is a leading cause of ED visits for adverse drug events in this age group,” Maribeth C. Lovegrove, MPH, a researcher in the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion and co-author of the study, told Healio. “Most of these overdoses result from young children finding and getting into medications that have been left within reach.”
Lovegrove and colleagues previously identified a significant increase in the estimated number of annual ED visits for unsupervised medication exposures among young children from 2004 to 2010, and the beginning of a decline in these visits from 2010 to 2013.
“We wanted to examine whether this decline continued through 2020 and to investigate whether the medications that were most commonly involved changed over time,” Lovegrove said.
In the new study, Lovegrove and colleagues estimated the annual number of ED visits for unsupervised medication exposures among children aged 5 years or younger using data from two public health surveillance systems encompassing about 60 hospitals in the U.S.
Although companies are required to provide child-resistant packaging on many medications, approximately 36,000 children aged 5 years or younger were brought to EDs after getting into medications left within reach in 2020, the data showed. That was an approximately 45% decrease from around 66,000 visits in 2009.
“Since the sample of participating hospitals is nationally representative, we used these data to generate estimates of how many ED visits were made annually for unsupervised medication exposures by young children in the United States,” Lovegrove said.
She said they were “surprised and encouraged” to see a 45% decline in the estimated number of ED visits for unsupervised medication exposures among young children from 2009 to 2020, which Lovegrove noted coincided with renewed efforts to reduce unintentional medication overdoses among young children by the CDC and others.
Also surprising, Lovegrove said, was that exposures involving herbal or alternative remedies increased by 65.6%. This was primarily driven by a 421% increase in ED visits for melatonin exposures.
“When we analyzed these ... data previously, we found a significant increase in the estimated number of annual ED visits for unsupervised medication exposures among children aged 5 years or younger from 2004 to 2010, peaking at approximately 76,000 visits in 2010, followed by a 22% decline from 2010 to 2013. Now we know that that decline continued at least through 2020,” Lovegrove said, adding that, “there is still work to be done.”
“Pediatricians and other primary care providers can help prevent these unintentional exposures by reminding parents and other caregivers of young children about the importance of keeping all medications, vitamins and other supplements — including those in gummy form — out of sight and reach of young children,” Lovegrove said.
Reference:
Lovegrove MC, et al. Am J Prev Med. 2023;doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2023.01.011.
Lovegrove MC, et al. Pediatrics. 2015;doi:10.1542/peds.2015-2092.
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