In a prospective study, 174 families were interviewed over the telephone to find out whether the treatment of their child's poisoning with medical charcoal was successfully completed. The majority (103; 59.2%) of the families had no charcoal at home. The mean delay in administration for those who had to obtain charcoal was 41.6 min; significantly longer than the 24.5 min taken for those who had charcoal at home (P