Drug self-poisoning in adolescents: A report of 267 cases

The current study aims at describing a sample of adolescents admitted to a tertiary referral pediatric hospital for drug self-poisoning and to identify variables that could explain and predict a higher severity of intoxication.

We retrospectively reviewed the cases of drug self-poisoning in adolescents admitted to the Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital between January 2014 and June 2022 requiring consultation by the local Pediatric Poison Control Center (PPCC). We reported the type and class of drug ingested and correlated the clinical characteristics of the patients with their Poison Severity Score.

The data of 267 patients were reported. Most patients were female (85.8 %), with a median age of 15.8 years at presentation. Half of the patients were symptomatic at admission (44.2 %), and most had at least one psychiatric comorbidity (71.1 %). Most patients were hospitalized (79.6 %), 16.6 % of cases required antidote administration and a minority required intensive care. Most patients received a PSS score of 0 (59.6 %). The most frequently ingested drug was acetaminophen (28.1 %) followed by ibuprofen (10.1 %) and aripiprazole (10.1 %). Antipsychotics as a class were the most abused drugs (33.1 %). The correlation of clinical variables with the PSS showed that older and male patients were more prone to be severely intoxicated.

This single-center study identifies the most commonly ingested drugs in a large sample of adolescents with voluntary drug self-poisoning, also showing that older and male patients are more susceptible to severe intoxication.