Hospital usage of TOXBASE in Great Britain : temporal trends in accesses 2008 to 2015

Pyper, K and Eddleston, M and Bateman, DN and Lupton, D and Bradberry, S and Sandilands, E and Thomas, SHL and Thompson, JP and Robertson, C (2018) Hospital usage of TOXBASE in Great Britain : temporal trends in accesses 2008 to 2015. Human and Experimental Toxicology, 37 (11). pp. 1207-1214. ISSN 0960-3271 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0960327118759405)

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Abstract

Aim: Examining temporal trends in accesses to the UK's National Poison Information Service's TOXBASE database in Britain. Methods: Generalised additive models were used to examine trends in daily numbers of accesses to TOXBASE from British emergency departments between January 2008 and December 2015. Day-of-the-week, seasonality and long term trends were analysed at national and regional levels (Wales, Scotland and the 9 English Government Office Regions). Results: The long-term trend in daily accesses increases from 2.8 (95% CI:2.6, 3.0) per user on 1st January 2008 to 4.6 (95% CI:4.3, 4.9) on 31st December 2015, with small but significant differences in population-corrected accesses by region (p<0.001). There are statistically significant seasonal and day of the week patterns (p<0.001) across all regions. Accesses are 18 % (95% CI:14%, 22%) higher in summer than in January and at the weekend compared to weekdays in all regions; there is a 7.5% (95% CI:6.1%, 8.9%) increase between Friday and Sunday. Conclusions: There are consistent in-year patterns in access to TOXBASE indicating potential seasonal patterns in poisonings in Britain, with location-dependant rates of usage. This novel descriptive work lays the basis for future work on the interaction of TOXBASE use with emergency admission of patients into hospital.

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