Every year an estimated 7,091 children under age 12 are treated in U.S. emergency departments for adverse events related to over-the-counter and prescription cough and cold medications.
Almost two-thirds of these visits were due to unsupervised ingestions, reported Dr. Melissa K. Schaefer and her associates at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The estimate is based on emergency department (ED) visits for adverse drug events attributable to cough and cold medications, identified from a nationally representative sample of 63 emergency departments in 2004 and 2005. The 7,091 visits make up almost 6% of all ED visits related to all medications in this age group; 66% of the study visits were related to unsupervised ingestions–significantly higher than the 47% of ED visits related to unsupervised ingestions of other medications. The cough and cold products contained decongestants, expectorants, or combinations of decongestants, antihistamines, antitussive, and/or expectorant ingredients.
Hospital admission or extended observation was not needed in 93% of these cases, but 23% of patients had to undergo gastric decontamination. In over half of the cases, no symptoms were noted in the ED. However, among children who were symptomatic, 19% had allergic symptoms and 13% had neurologic symptoms.
The investigators noted that surveillance data from this and future studies could “help target education, enforcement, and engineering strategies for reducing adverse events from cough and cold medications among children.”
The study, which will be published in the April print issue of Pediatrics, appeared on the journal's Web site (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2007-3638v3