Unintentional injuries among children aged 1-4 years at home

Abstract

A hospital based case-control study was performed to determine causes of unintentional injuries among children aged 1-4 years at home. Data were obtained by interviewing parents and guardians of 242 children at Lerdsin Hospital in Bangkok, from August to October 1999. The results showed that falls were the most common type of injuries (54.6%). The age of 2 years comprised the major group (28.9%). The study subjects were injured within the home (60.7%). Sunday and Saturday were the most frequent days of injuries (18.2% and 16.5% respectively). The proportion of cases involving playing with others was 71.1%. Most of the injuries occurred in the period 16.00-19.00 hours (32.2%). Head and neck were the main injured area (45.5%). The multivariate model showed that children who had previous injuries were 19.22 times more likely to be injured again than those who had not previously been injured. Children with vigorous physical activities also had a higher risk (OR = 19.73, 95% CI 6.11-63.74). Outdoor working mothers were at higher risk than houseworking mothers (OR = 4.14, 95% CI 1.57-10.93) of having children affects. Children who spent most of the daytime at their relatives' houses had a higher risk than those who stayed at their home (OR = 3.48, 95% CI 1.02-11.81), while, 37.9% of children injured at their relatives' houses and 50.8% of all injured children were without supervision.