Pre-school childhood poisoning in Thailand.

A descriptive study of pre-school poisoning in Khon Kaen province revealed that poisoning had a lower incidence rate and a much lower proportion of all hospital attendances than that reported in western studies. This could have been because grandparents, if not parents, still had a major role in child-rearing. This advantage was supported by increased affection as reflected by the finding that children were described as easy-to-take-care of ("Jiang-ngai") and not difficult ("liang-yaak") children, as reported in previous western studies where non-related baby-sitters were common. However, many disadvantages including illiteracy, age disabilities, improper supervision, and poor understanding of the risks of poisoning were identified in child caregivers in this study.