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Incidence and Impact of Unintentional Childhood Injuries: A Community Based Study in Rural South India

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Abstract

Objective

To estimate the incidence of unintentional childhood injuries and to assess the impact of injury during childhood.

Methods

This is a cross sectional study, conducted in 13 clusters of a rural block in Vellore. Children were screened by two-stage cluster sampling method by two weeks and three months recall method. The primary caregivers of injured children were administered a questionnaire to assess the impact of the injury.

Results

Childhood injury related morbidity was 292.5 per 1000 y. Children between 10 and 14 y (4.6%) and boys (4.5%) had a higher rate of injury. Fall (43.1 %) was the most common cause of injury followed by RTIs (Road Traffic Incidents- 27.6%). Work absenteeism for primary caregivers ranged from 1 to 60 (IQR 2–7) days. Sickness absenteeism ranged from 1 to 45 d with a mean of 7.64 (IQR 2–7) days. Half of the children missed school after an injury. The days spent with temporary disability ranged from 1 to 60 d with a mean of 11.79 (IQR 2–7) d and 7.73% had permanent disability.

Conclusions

Unintentional childhood injury is a neglected public health problem which leads to sickness absenteeism and disability. Boys and older children are the most common victims of injury. There is a need for establishing state or nationwide injury registries to help understand accurate estimates of disability-adjusted life year (DALY) and loss of productivity.

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Contributions

LRI: Concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, experimental studies, data acquisition and analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation and review; AR and AB: Concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, experimental studies, manuscript review; KG: Concepts, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, experimental studies, statistical analysis, manuscript review. KG will act as guarantor for the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community Health, Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560024, India

    Leeberk Raja Inbaraj

  2. Department of Community Health, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

    Anuradha Rose, Kuryan George & Anuratha Bose

Authors
  1. Leeberk Raja Inbaraj
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  2. Anuradha Rose
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  3. Kuryan George
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  4. Anuratha Bose
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leeberk Raja Inbaraj.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all the individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

None.

Source of Funding

Fluid Research Fund, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.

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Inbaraj, L.R., Rose, A., George, K. et al. Incidence and Impact of Unintentional Childhood Injuries: A Community Based Study in Rural South India. Indian J Pediatr 84, 206–210 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12098-016-2260-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12098-016-2260-6

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