Background As a part of a national home safety programme in Iran, a surveillance system was designed and implemented in the whole country (especially in rural areas) to register those injuries which resulted in an emergency room visit.

Aims/Objectives/Purpose The aim of this study was to map out some epidemiological aspects of self inflicted and unintentional injuries among Iranian women at reproductive age using the national registry.

Methods Injury data were taken from a national-based injury surveillance system over the period 2000–2002. The study population comprised 31.5% of Iran's population.

Results/Outcomes Of all the 307 064 home injuries reported during the years 2000–2002, about 152 600 cases (49.7%) involved women. About half of these women (76,474) belonged to reproductive age. The majority (42.7%) of injuries among reproductive age women were burn wounds followed by lacerations in 32.6%. Eighty-five percent of suicide cases were poisonings followed by 11% of cases being due to burns. However, 45.2% of burn suicides were fatal compared to only 0.89% fatality ratio for poisoning. Of all women victim cases, 1029 died, 174 victims became disabled and the remaining improved or were undergoing therapy when reported.

Significance/Contribution to the Field Injuries especially burns are a major health problem for women at reproductive age in Iran and should be considered as a priority for prevention measures.

In addition, the surveillance system employed in this study can be discussed as a practical model for Low and Middle income countries.