International journal of injury control and safety promotion
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Our aim was to study the demography, anatomical regions injured, severity, and outcome of hospitalised trauma patients who were injured by falling objects in order to give recommendations regarding their prevention in the UAE. All trauma patients who were injured by falling objects and were admitted to Al Ain Hospital for more than 24 hours, or died after arrival to the hospital were studied for over 3 years. One hundred forty nine patients having a mean age (SD) > 34 (12.1) years were studied. ⋯ Extremities and head/neck were the most common injured regions; 1.3% of patients died. Males from the Indian subcontinent are at a higher risk of being injured by falling objects especially at work. Safety education and programs, environmental changes, use of protective devices including helmets or special shoes, and proper enforcement of the safety guidelines could reduce hospitalisations, disability, and death from these injuries.
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We aimed to study the anatomical distribution, severity, and outcome of hospitalised trauma pedestrian patients in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), so as to improve preventive measures. All pedestrian trauma patients who were involved with a road traffic collision and admitted to Al Ain Hospital for more than 24 hours or who died in the hospital were included in the study. Data were prospectively collected during March 2003-October 2007. ⋯ Severe head injury was the main cause of death. Measures to improve pedestrian safety should be adopted so as to reduce morbidity and mortality. These include educating drivers and pedestrians on road safety and enforcement of traffic safety laws.
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Int J Inj Contr Saf Promot · Jan 2015
A standardised mortuary-based injury surveillance system: lessons learned from the Ibadan Nigerian trial.
This study explored the challenges in establishing a mortuary-based injury surveillance system in a resource-constrained setting of Ibadan, Nigeria. To quantify and detail fatal injuries, in September 2010 to February 2011, a prospective data collection utilised the World Health Organization-Monash draft surveillance system. Findings were compared with other low- and middle-income settings, and surveillance system attributes were assessed. ⋯ Fire-related injury was the second unintentional cause in the Ibadan pilot, unlike Global Burden of Disease estimates for Nigeria, Mauritius and Mexico, where drowning was the second cause. Positive system attributes included timeliness, data field completeness, specificity, flexibility and sensitivity. Despite apparent under-reporting of eligible deaths and questionable representativeness, this study illustrates potential for mortuary data to inform injury prevention policies and programmes in resource-constrained settings.
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Int J Inj Contr Saf Promot · Jan 2015
Comparative StudyA comparison of urban-rural injury mortality rates across two South African provinces, 2007.
This study explored urban-rural variations in the magnitude and patterns of fatal injuries in South Africa. The National Injury Mortality Surveillance System was utilised to select South African mortality cases for the 2007 period and a cross-sectional methodology was employed in order to comparatively analyse injury mortality rates in the urban province of Gauteng and the rural province of Mpumalanga. ⋯ Overall, homicide and unintentional (non-transport) injury death rates were significantly higher in the urban province (40.28/100,000 versus 28.48/100,000; (RR = 1.41 [1.32-1.51]) and 18.30/100,000 versus 13.19/100,000; (RR = 1.39 [1.25-1.54]), respectively), whilst transport-related injury mortality rates were significantly higher in the rural province (66.57/100,000 versus 45.83/100,000; (RR = 0.69 [0.66-0.71])). Such results could be attributed to economical, environmental, and infrastructural differences between urban-rural locations and suggest that injury control strategies could be better targeted to the needs of specific geographic populations in South Africa.
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Int J Inj Contr Saf Promot · Jan 2015
Risk compensation behaviours in construction workers' activities.
The purpose of this study was to test whether the construction workers have the tendency of engaging in risk compensation behaviours, and identify the demographic variables, which may influence the extent to which the construction workers may show risk compensation behaviours. Both quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interviews) approaches were used in this study. A questionnaire survey was conducted with all the construction workers on three building construction sites of a leading construction company in Australia. ⋯ The workers with more working experience, higher education, or having never been injured at work before have a higher tendency to show risk compensation in their activities than the others. The implication is that contractors need to assess the potential influence of workers' risk compensation behaviours when evaluating the effect of risk control measures. It is recommended that supervisors pay more attention to the behavioural changes of those workers who have more experience, higher education, and have never been injured before after the implementation of new safety control measures on construction site.