Epidemiology of Home-Related Injuries During a Six-Year Period in Kashan, Iran

BACKGROUND Injury is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world, and the home is one of the most common places for these types of injuries. OBJECTIVES This study is designed to investigate the epidemiology of home-related injuries in Kashan, Iran. PATIENTS AND METHODS This investigation is a retrospective cross-sectional study on existing data from the data bank of the Trauma Research Center at Kashan University of Medical Sciences during a six-year period. Demographic data such as; sex, age, place of residence, educational and occupational status, injury mechanism, injured organs and injury outcomes, were analyzed using a chi-squared test and P < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS The number of home injuries was 10146 in total, that included about 25.2% of all injuries in Kashan City. Most of the injured people were men (58.3%), 87.4% lived in the city and 18.6% were aged more than 64 years. The majority (42.7%) had a primary or secondary school education and 27.2% were housewives. Falling from a height was the most common cause of injury (55.3%). Limbs were the most common body region that was injured (73.7%). Young men (under 15 years) and older women (over 65 years) had more injuries, especially from falls. There was a statistically significant difference between the sex and age of the injured people (P < 0.001), sex and injury mechanism (P < 0.001), and also between the injury mechanism and sex in the age groups (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The most common injury mechanism in regard to home accidents was falls; therefore fall-related injury prevention programs should be designed to make homes safer and education should focus on changes in lifestyle to reduce fall susceptibility.