Characteristics of children aged <5 years and exposed to laundry detergents in Italy between September 2010 and June 2015
| Characteristics | LDPs | TLDs | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n | %† | n | %† | n | %† | |
| Gender*** | ||||||
| Female | 791 | 48.0 | 470 | 40.9 | 1261 | 45.1 |
| Male | 856 | 51.9 | 680 | 59.1 | 1536 | 54.9 |
| Unknown | 2 | 0.1 | 0 | 0.0 | 2 | 0.1 |
| Age (years)*** | ||||||
| <1 | 95 | 5.8 | 52 | 4.5 | 147 | 5.3 |
| 1 | 621 | 37.7 | 489 | 42.5 | 1110 | 39.7 |
| 2 | 484 | 29.4 | 415 | 36.1 | 899 | 32.1 |
| 3 | 289 | 17.5 | 135 | 11.7 | 424 | 15.1 |
| 4 | 160 | 9.7 | 59 | 5.1 | 219 | 7.8 |
| Route of exposure*** | ||||||
| Single route | 1452 | 88.1 | 1072 | 93.2 | 2524 | 90.2 |
| Ingestion | 1363 | 82.7 | 1025 | 89.1 | 2388 | 85.3 |
| Eye | 76 | 4.6 | 28 | 2.4 | 104 | 3.7 |
| Skin | 13 | 0.8 | 19 | 1.7 | 32 | 1.1 |
| Multiple routes | 197 | 11.9 | 73 | 6.3 | 270 | 9.6 |
| Ingestion and eye | 84 | 5.1 | 17 | 1.5 | 101 | 3.6 |
| Ingestion eye and skin | 27 | 1.6 | 8 | 0.7 | 35 | 1.3 |
| Ingestion and skin | 28 | 1.7 | 9 | 0.8 | 37 | 1.3 |
| Eye and skin | 54 | 3.3 | 36 | 3.1 | 90 | 3.2 |
| Other | 4 | 0.2 | 3 | 0.3 | 7 | 0.3 |
| Unknown | 0 | 0.0 | 5 | 0.4 | 5 | 0.2 |
| Management site*** | ||||||
| Hospital | 1123 | 68.1 | 477 | 41.5 | 1600 | 57.2 |
| Private residence | 526 | 31.9 | 673 | 58.5 | 1199 | 42.8 |
***p<0.001.
†The column percentages were calculated using the total number of patients exposed to LDPs (n=1649), TLDs (n=1150) and total (n=2799), respectively.
LDP, laundry detergent pod; TLD, traditional laundry detergent.