Unintentional poisonings: What are the prevention messages?

Unintentional poisonings are on the rise in the US. regardless of the level of severity. The abuse and overuse of prescription and illegal drugs is driving unintentional poisonings to be the second leading cause of injury death. On the other end of the severity spectrum, calls to poison control centers, have reached an all-time high of 2.4 million human exposures; approximately 70% of these calls can be treated at home requiring no costly emergency room or hospital stay. This analysis looks at web-based prevention messages on poison-related websites to see if current messaging (February 2008) matches with the top causes of unintentional poisoning. Unintentional poison prevention messages were reviewed from several sources, including government and poison center websites. Websites were categorized by what types of prevention messages they included (i.e. substances); who the message was aimed at (i.e. kids or adults); and how easy it was to access the message (i.e. number of clicks in from the home page). This website analysis was compared with the top substances for unintentional poisoning fatalities and calls to poison centers. The most common substances that lead to human poison exposures in all ages are: analgesics (11.9%), cosmetics/personal care products (8.9%), household cleaning substances (8.9%), sedatives/hypnotics/antipsychotics (5.9%), and foreign bodies/toys/miscellaneous (5%). The most common substances that lead to fatal unintentional poisonings are: narcotics and hallucinogens (46.8%), unspecified drugs (40.9%); sedatives (6.3%); gases (2.7%); and alcohol (1.5%). The prevention messages must change as the top substances leading to poisoning morbidity and mortality change.