Poison information centres are under pressure because of animal-related poison enquiries: a European survey

INTRODUCTION: As veterinary poison information centres are uncommon in Europe, many European poison information centres are confronted with veterinary-related enquiries. Here, we report the experience of poison information centres in handling enquiries related to poisoning in animals.

METHODS: A survey was sent to 59 poison information centres in 32 European countries and Israel. Data was collected from 2022 about the general demographics of the centre, with an emphasis on veterinary services and their experience handling animal-related enquiries.

RESULTS: Thirty-three poison information centres in 21 countries completed the survey. In France and the United Kingdom, centres refer animal-related enquiries to veterinary poison information centres. In six other countries, centres do not provide a veterinary service. In two of these six countries, the centres have terminated their veterinary service. Twenty-one of the 33 poison information centres in 13 countries provide veterinary services to the public and/or veterinary professionals. The percentage of enquiries relating to poisoning in animals to total enquiries ranged from 0.0-9.0% (median 2.4%) for enquiries from the public at 18 of 21 poison information centres and 0.1-20.1% (median 1.5%) for enquiries from veterinary professionals at 20 of 21 poison information centres. The enquiries predominantly involved companion animals, especially dogs and cats. Twelve poison information centres considered animal-related enquiries a burden. The nature of this burden varied from feeling uncomfortable answering these enquiries due to insufficient skills/experience/expertise (n = 10), lack of (sufficient) funding/finance (n = 6), too time-consuming (n = 5), and too many enquiries compared to human enquiries (n = 1). Two centres were considering terminating their veterinary service in the future.

DISCUSSION: Overall, 19 of 27 poison information centres in 19 countries without veterinary poison information centres consider a veterinary poison information centre a necessity. As the provision of a veterinary service is not their primary task, most poison information centres consider it a burden.

CONCLUSION: Gaining insight into the volume of enquiries involving poisoning in animals, the burden they add to the workload of poison information centres, and the nature of this burden is important for the continuity of veterinary toxicological services by poison information centres.