Pilot evaluation of instructing parents of newborns about poison prevention strategies
J. M. Cooper, J. A. Widness and J. S. O'Shea
Division of Ambulatory Pediatrics, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence.
Providing new parents with both written and verbal information about
poisons and with syrup of ipecac appeared to be successful when distributed
at discharge of their normal newborns. New parents who received neither
information nor ipecac served as controls. Distribution occurred during a
nine-month period, which was followed after an interval of three months by
a four-month evaluation period. The average (+/- SD) time between infant
poison exposures and parent telephone calls to the statewide poison center
during the evaluation period was 5 +/- 3 minutes for the subjects and 12
+/- 4 for age-matched and socioeconomically matched controls. Both groups
had similar frequencies of potentially dangerous exposures for which syrup
of ipecac was recommended. Subject parents appeared to have homes which in
various respects were significantly more child-safe than those of the
controls. Significantly more control homes contained syrup of ipecac after
the exposures than before (77% vs 41%).
