National Poisons Information Centre Database (NPIC)
Beaumont Hospital.
Pre-1993 (Paper based)
1993-2003 Excel files
2004 onwards (Database, 3 versions, 2004 current version).
To provide information to healthcare professionals, to assist them in the management of acute poisonings, to give advice to members of the public on accidental poisoning in children and to collect and analyse epidemiological data on acute poisonings in Ireland.
Case records in the NPIC database are from self-reported calls. The NPIC is not contacted about every case of poisoning treated in hospital or by GPs. The records reflect only the information collected when the public or healthcare professionals report an actual or potential exposure to a substance or request information on the treatment of poisoning. Exposures do not necessarily represent a poisoning or overdose. The NPIC sometimes receives more than one call about the same patient so there may be multiple case records for one patient. The Poisoning Severity Score reflects symptoms reported at the time the NPIC was contacted. Follow-up data are not available in all cases to determine the outcome of the case after the initial call.
National data on enquiries received by the National Poisons Information Centre.
Aggregate data (annual reports) available for 1966 to 1993. Full dataset for 1993 to 2021 inclusive.
The main function of the National Poisons Information Centre is to provide information to healthcare professionals, to assist them in the management of acute poisonings. The Centre also gives advice to members of the public on accidental poisoning in children. The National Poisons Information Centre Database collects and analyses epidemiological data on acute poisonings in Ireland. The Centre provides a 24 hour service, 365 days a year. Enquiries are answered by Poisons Information Officers between 8am and 10pm, while night-time calls are automatically diverted to the UK National Poisons Information Service (NPIS). Enquiries are logged on a computer database called UK Poisons Information Database (UKPID) which is used to generate reports. This is a database of enquiries to the National Poisons Information Centre from 2004 to date. Enquiry data from 1998 to 2003 inclusive have been exported from older databases into Excel files. For earlier years only annual reports (paper based) are available.
National Poisons Information Centre,
Health and Safety Authority,
Department of Agriculture, Pesticide Registration and Control Division,
Clinical teams and researchers.
Responder; enquirer; nature of enquiry; patient demographics; agent information; poisoning severity score; response; outcome (in selected cases).
Not available.
National-level identifier variables are not included.
Age and gender are included in the dataset.
The data are collected on paper at the time of the enquiry and later entered into the database (UKPID) (daily). Selected enquiries are followed up by telephone to determine the outcome of the case.
WHO Adverse Reaction Terminology (ART) codes for features of poisoning. Poisoning Severity Score (PSS) for grading severity of poisoning.
10,000 average number of records created annually.
Annual reports published.
Data sub-sets may be published in meeting abstracts or articles in toxicology/medical journals.
Recent annual reports are available on the website www.poison.ie.
We can provide detailed anonymised data to regulatory authorities and researchers on request. This may be subject to ethics committee approval. Email npicdublin@beaumont.ie to request access.
No.
We will respond to data requests as quickly as possible but answering telephone enquiries takes priority for staff time.