2023-08-16 14:12:47
(Montreal) Just under 130 Canadian pediatricians have cared for at least one young person aged 12 and over in the last 24 months who had suffered a serious or life-threatening overdose of opioids, stimulants or sedatives, a new survey from the Canadian Pediatric Society reveals.
A thousand pediatricians took part in the survey. The vast majority of them, or 934 physicians, reported caring for children and adolescents aged 12 and over, and 14% of these said they had treated at least one overdose in the last two years.
The responses provided by these 128 physicians reveal that regarding 60% of them had experienced stimulant and sedative overdoses, and regarding half had to manage a patient with an opioid overdose. .
In total, these physicians have seen 636 overdose cases over the past two years. However, we can assume that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
These figures, believes the Canadian Pediatric Society, are worrying “from a population perspective, in particular because these data do not include children and adolescents who did not obtain pediatric care following an overdose or those who obtained care from a non-paediatric health care provider”.
Pediatricians and other pediatric health professionals are often under the impression that the problem of overdoses is not a pediatric problem, recalled Dr. Nicholas Chadi, a specialist in adolescent medicine and a researcher specializing in addiction. at the CHU Sainte-Justine.
“But what we are seeing in Western Canada is really an alarming epidemiological trend,” he warned. The leading cause of death among adolescents is overdoses. It’s true in British Columbia, it’s starting to be true in other western provinces, and it’s something that might certainly happen eventually in Quebec. »
Substance overdoses, he added, have become “a prominent pediatric problem” and it is imperative that pediatricians are able not only to help prevent these situations, but also to treat appropriate for young people presenting to hospital emergency rooms.
Unfortunately, Dr. Chadi said, pediatricians are often not trained to recognize and manage overdoses in their patients.
“There is a possibility that it will not be recognized or not recognized quickly enough, he underlined. You have to act very quickly to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Surveys like this prove that pediatricians have no choice but to get informed, educated, and then be prepared. »
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