High prevalence of unintentional injuries and socio-psychological correlates among school-going adolescents in Timor-Leste

Abstract

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. The study aimed to report on the prevalence and socio-psychological correlates of non-fatal injury among school-going adolescents in Timor-Leste. Cross-sectional data from the 2015 Timor-Leste "Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS)"included 3,704 school children (median age 16 years, interquartile range 3) that were representative of all students in secondary school, excluding grade 12. The proportion of participants with one or multiple serious injuries in the past year was 70.0% (40.6% once, 17.2% two-three times and 12.2% 4-12 times). The most frequent cause of the reported injury were "I fell"(33.8%) and motor vehicle (10.2%) and the most common type of injury was "a broken bone or dislocated joint"(7.8%) and "cut, puncture or stab wound"(6.7%). In adjusted multinomial logistic regression analysis, suicide attempt was associated with one injury, and truancy was associated with both one and multiple injury. Current tobacco use, lifetime cannabis use, soft drink consumption, and loneliness were associated with multiple injuries. Several variables were identified that could be targeted in injury prevention programmes in this school population.