Epidemiology of drug overdose in children.

Childhood drug overdoses are a continuing important public health problem. Although drug overdoses are no longer the important cause of childhood mortality they once were, such poisonings account for highly frequent and unacceptable instances of childhood injuries. These poisonings exact a high cost from society. They result in many emergency department visits and hospitalisations, with the attendant indirect costs of suffering, parental anxiety, and lost days of work or school. Childhood drug overdoses are preventable; those children and families at highest risk show identifiable characteristics, and the medications which pose the greatest hazard to children have already been identified. These injuries divert expensive and scarce medical resources from society's other health problems. Thus, clinicians must do more to prevent childhood drug overdoses whenever possible.