What is causing the city’s children to land up in hospitals? Burns, trauma and dog bites are the reasons, says a research study titled “Unintentional Injuries in Children at Paediatric Emergency Centre: A Developing Country Perspective”.
Male children
Analysis of data revealed that injuries were more common among kids of the age group of 1-5 years. Male children were at a higher risk for unintentional injuries.
Children with head or facial injury required hospitalisation more often than children with injuries on other body parts. There were three main types of injuries — trauma (89.3%), burns (5%), and dog bites (5%). Also falling from heights (49.4%) was the most common mechanism in children who presented with a history of trauma. About 50% of the injuries were sustained over the head and facial region.
Unintentional injuries
This was a retrospective descriptive study published recently on September 20 in the Indian Journal of Child Health on 180 children of unintentional injuries who visited paediatric emergency department of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital during the festive months of September to October 2011, to determine the frequency and nature of unintentional injuries, noted a release issued by the hospital.
According to Dr. Suresh Gupta, author and senior consultant, department of paediatric emergency at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, “In our study, we observed that head and face were the most common areas of injury (46.6%), and this can be explained as head and face contributes to the larger proportion of body surface area in children. The most common mechanism of injuries was falls (54.7%), and the most common place of injury occurrence was at home.”
Festive seasons
Dr. Gupta added, “It is a common observation that in India during festive seasons such as Makar Sankranti and Holi, the incidence of falls from roof increases because of unsupervised kite flying, and similarly, in Diwali, the incidence of burns increases significantly because of firecrackers. Special attention should be paid to children during this time.”
“Based on the intent of injuries, injuries can be divided into intentional and unintentional. Intentional injuries include child abuse and violence against children whereas unintentional injuries include falls, road accidents, drowning, poisoning, and burns. In developed countries, injuries are the most common cause of childhood morbidity and mortality. As per the World Health Organization report, injuries are the sixth leading cause of childhood mortality throughout the world; however, in India, it is the fifth leading cause of under-five childhood mortality,” said Dr. Yachana Chaudhary, author of the study, department of community medicine, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal.
