The Epidemiological Profile of Injuries in Children up to 59 Months Old in Kermanshah Province in 2015

Abstract Background: Injuries have always been among the main factors threatening human life and health, and Children are one of the vulnerable population groups in this field. The purpose of this study is to survey incident and examine the distribution of injuries in children 0 to 59 months old in Kermanshah Province in 2015. Material and Methods: This survey is a cross-sectional study, gathering its data from Health Vice-presidency of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. It covers all the injured whose reason of injury was referring to private and public hospitals under the supervision of Health Vice-presidency of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, during 2015. Data was collected from the injury software package of Ministry of Health. All registered individuals in this software were included in the study. Also, all the injuries, including electric shock, road traffic accidents, animal attacks, violence, fall, burn, hit, scorpion and snake sting, drowning, poisoning were entered in our research. Results: The number of injuries in children was 3499 cases: 2216 (63.3%) boys and 1283 (36.7%) girls. Incidence of injuries was 23.3 cases per 1000 children aged 0-59 months old. The highest frequency of injuries was in children aged 0 to 11 months (42%) and majority of them occurred at home (58.5%). Most incidents was in summer (especially in September). The most common causes of injuries included fall (52.7%), road traffic injuries (29.6%), and poisoning (14.1%). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, most of injuries occur in the home, it is recommended that certain instructions be given to parents about child developmental stages to enable them to make the home a safe environment for children, as children less than 5 years old spend most of their time there.