TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - Toxic exposures among young children one year into the covid-19 pandemic: a retrospective review of three San Francisco Bay area emergency departments
JO  - Journal of emergency medicine
A1  - Devlin, Gabriel
A1  - Addo, Newton
A1  - Shaahinfar, Ashkon
A1  - Chen, Carol C.
A1  - Grupp-Phelan, Jacqueline
A1  - Kornblith, Aaron E.
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - BACKGROUND: Daycare and school closures prompted by shelter-in-place orders may have increased opportunities for unintentional ingestions among young children. <br><br>OBJECTIVES: We examined emergency department (ED) presentations for toxic exposures among young children during the COVID-19 pandemic in the San Francisco Bay Area, which had some of the strictest and most prolonged shelter-in-place policies in the United States. <br><br>METHODS: We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study of children 0 to 5 years of age who presented with an ED International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision diagnosis code of toxic exposure within a tertiary care hospital system between March 16, 2016 and March 15, 2021. We considered the period after March 16, 2020 to represent the pandemic. <br><br>RESULTS: During the pandemic, the absolute number of poisonings among young children remained stable. Overall, ED encounters within this cohort decreased by 55%, which doubled the relative toxic exposure rate per 1000 ED encounters from 4.99 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.19-5.90) to 9.79 (95% CI 8.09-11.49). Rates of admission, severe medical complications, operating room case requests, and length of stay were not significantly different. Shelter-in-place was associated with significantly higher odds of cannabis ingestion (odds ratio = 2.70, 95% CI 1.60-4.49). <br><br>CONCLUSION: Despite dramatic decreases in overall ED patient volumes, the absolute number and severity of toxic exposures were similar during the pandemic compared with previous years. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0736-4679
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jemermed.2022.09.035
ID  - ref1
ER  -