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927 Unintentional childhood injuries in Kenya: epidemiological patterns based on hospital trauma registry data
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  1. Huan He1,
  2. Yuen W Hung1,
  3. Isaac M Botchey1,
  4. Abdul M Bachani1,
  5. Hassan Saidi2,
  6. Adnan A Hyder1,
  7. Kent A Stevens1,3
  1. 1Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
  2. 2University of Nairobi, Kenya
  3. 3Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Surgery, USA

Abstract

Background Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for children under age 18 years globally. Our study aims to describe the epidemiological patterns of unintentional injuries and assess the adoption of safety measures and pre-hospital care among paediatric injury patients to inform future interventions in Kenya.

Methods The Trauma Registry System collected data of injury patients from four major hospitals in Kenya between January 2014 and July 2015. Out of the 4257 paediatric patients, 4005 (94.1%) with unintentional injuries were included in analysis.

Results We found that boys were more likely to suffer from unintentional injuries than girls at all ages, accounting for 60.4% of those under 5 years (n = 1359), 68.0% of those aged 5–9 years (n = 1130), and 73.0% of those aged 10–17 years (n = 1516). Majority of the injuries happened at home (79.9%) or on the road (14.5%) for those under age 5; while more injuries occurred at school for those aged 5–9 (15.0%) and aged 10–17 (31.3%). The top three injuries were fall (46.5%), burn (29.1%), and road traffic injuries (14.2%) for children under age 5 years, and fall (64.8%), traffic injuries (19.1%), and struck or hit by a person or object (7.3%) for children aged 5–17 years. Death rate was higher for the under age 5 group (4.9%) than that for the age 5–17 group (1.3%). Burns and traffic injuries had higher death rates (6.6%, 5.6%) and severity scores compared to the other injuries. The adoption rates for helmets and seatbelts were about 10% in at risk patients. Only 18.4% children received pre-hospital care, which was mostly provided by relatives and friends and associated with lower odds of death (p < 0.05).

Conclusions Our preliminary findings show that the epidemiological patterns of injuries differ by child age, which implicates that interventions should be tailored for specific age phases. This study pinpoints the needs to prioritise promoting pro-safety behaviours to alleviate the consequences of injuries in Kenya.

  • Unintentional injuries
  • children
  • epidemiology
  • intervention

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