Article Text

Download PDFPDF

3F.005 The epidemiology of home and workplace injuries in Nepal: a household survey
Free
  1. Toity Deave1,
  2. Puspa Pant1,
  3. Sunil Raja Manandhar2,
  4. Drubha Adhikari2,
  5. Elisha Joshi3,
  6. Sunil Joshi4,
  7. Julie Mytton1
  1. 1University of The West of England, Bristol, UK
  2. 2Mother and Infant Research Activities, Kathmandu, Nepal
  3. 3Nepal Injury Research Centre, Kathmandu Medical College Public Limited, Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal
  4. 4Department of Community Medicine, Kathmandu Medical College Public Limited, Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

Background Unintentional Injuries comprise the fifth leading cause of death in Nepal in 2017, an increase of 23% compared to 1990. In Nepal, there is minimal community-derived evidence of home or occupational injuries. Our aim was to describe the epidemiology of injuries in the Makwanpur district, including the causes and risk factors associated with those injuries.

Methods A cross-sectional, household survey was undertaken in three administrative areas of Nepal between April-June, 2019. Data were collected electronically about non-fatal and fatal injuries in the previous three months and five years, respectively.

Results 17,593 individuals from 3,327 households were surveyed; 394 people were injured. 136/394 (34.5%) injuries occurred in homes, 109 (27.7%) were work-related. 225 (55.8%) were males, the age range was 0–87 years, 123 (30.7%) were child injuries, (0–17 yrs). The most commonly reported injury was falls (n=173, 43.9%), stumbling and tripping were the most common reasons and 73 (42.2%) occurred at home. More injuries occurred in rural administrative areas than urban areas, especially occupational injuries (occupational: chi-square=22.05, p=0.000; home: chi-square=13.89, p<0.001).

Conclusions Home and occupational fall injuries are common, especially in rural areas. Understanding the context of falls, especially identifying and working with particular occupational groups where they are prevalent, may identify risk factors and help target messages about primary falls prevention and interventions.

Learning Outcomes Using hand-held computers and local enumerators for data collection in sample areas resulted in minimal missing data and monitoring of data quality during the collection period.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.