Retrospective investigation of acute substance intoxication pre and post COVID-19: focus on qualitative and quantitative changes in 19,918 telephone calls to an Italian poison control centre

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the habits of the global population, forcing individuals to experience a more daily relationship with the concept of health risk. Previous studies have underscored a statistically significant surge in consultation requests to poison control centres to address intoxication during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research is a monocentric observational study assessing the telephone consultations provided by our poison control centre between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2022. Data from a total of 19,918 telephone consultations were processed. We implemented a temporal division into subgroups based on the epidemiological trend of positive COVID-19 cases across Italian territory and the lockdown measures enacted by the Italian government to combat the pandemic. Twelve categories of substances involved in potential poisonings have been identified.

The Medical Device, Household Product, and Cosmetics categories exhibit an increase in the number of calls during the pandemic phase. The call distribution for the Drug intoxication category exhibits an overall decrease during this period. A decreasing trend is confirmed for anti-inflammatory and antibiotic drugs, consistent with the reduced consumption of these drugs by the Italian population. In contrast, the distribution of calls related to cardiological drugs follows a different trend, with a large number of call counts registered during the pandemic period. Notably, we also observe an increase in the frequency of calls related to the use of disinfectants and basic hygiene products during the pandemic phase.

We have showed the impact of cosmetics and medical devices use on the incidence of intoxication during the COVID-19 pandemic. A higher number of calls for poisoning related to disinfectants and misuse of basic hygiene products was recorded during the strict lockdown period (March 2020 to May 2020). This increase reflects a surge in the use of these products as individuals intensify their efforts to maintain hygiene and prevent the spread of the virus. The increase in cardiological drug misuse and the reduction in analgesic/anti-inflammatory and antibiotics misuse during the pandemic could suggest that public health choices and population’s general behaviour could have impacted the type of intoxication that clinicians found themselves managing.