Patterns of public access to a regional poison control center: 1979 through 1986

A routine part of the service provided by the New Mexico Poison and Drug Information Center is to perform at least 1 follow-up call on each poisoning case. Whenever practicable, public callers are asked an open-ended question during follow-up that determines where they found the poison center telephone number at the time of the original call. From 1979 through 1986, telephone number source data were collected from 101,905 public callers and categorized by 26 possible descriptors. Annual data capture rates varied from 99% (1979) to 48% (1986). These data were examined to note any changes in public access to the Center in response to the initiation and implementation of a more aggressive public outreach program in 1982 and 1983, which were considered transition years. The other years were grouped as either pre-transition (1979-81) or post-transition (1984-1986). Statistically significant (P less than 0.05) changes from the pre-transition years to the post-transition years included increased utilization of telephone labels (4.6% to 19.5%) and emergency department referrals (4.0% to 7.0%), while use of telephone directory listings and hospital operator referrals decreased (47.1% to 41.7% and 5.2% to 1.9%, respectively). In 1986, the most frequently used telephone number sources were the telephone directory (41.6%), telephone labels (23.5%), emergency department referrals (7.8%) and directory assistance (5.0%).