Background: Injuries are an important public health problem worldwide, accounting for 5 million deaths, of which unintentional injuries account for 0.8 million deaths in children. Though there are many factors responsible for injury in the home, the environment plays an important role. Objectives: The objectives were to study the magnitude and pattern of home injuries in children aged 0–14 years and to assess the environmental risk associated with home injuries. Methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in 2015 in a ward of Mehrauli containing 20,800 households, and the total sample of children was selected from 400 households by systematic random sampling, with sampling interval being 52. Information was taken using a predesigned, semi-structured, pretested proforma from both the parents and children. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 12. Results: The prevalence of home injury was found to be 39.7% in the last 1 year, significantly higher in the age group of 1–3 years (54.3%) followed by 5–10 years (45.1%) (P = 0.000). The total number of injuries and the average number of injuries in girls were significantly higher than those of boys. The most common type of home injury was falls (59.5%) followed by injury with sharps and burn injury. The environmental risk was assessed using standard and working definitions and found unsafe electrical points (95.3%), unsafe stairs (100%), unsafe kitchen with access to sharps (29.3%), access to active fire (19.3%), and unsafe furniture and objects (22.8%). Conclusion: Though home injury did not occur in 60% of the children during the study period, the risk of injury in the future is high. Educating the parents and the children at schools and environmental modification are important strategies for prevention of home injury.

An epidemiological study on home injuries among children of 0–14 years in South Delhi

Injuries constitute around 16% of the total disease burden in India with respect to Disability-Adjusted Life Years.1 More than two third of the injuries are unintentional and more often at the household level. 2 In many developed nations more accidents happen in home than anywhere else. 3 The statistics is worse in developing nations like India, especially in rural areas and urban unplanned towns. 4,5 Since these are always unexpected and unplanned, we do not routinely think about injury risk during our day-to-day interactions, domestic accidents being one of them. 

Domestic accidents are the accidents which happen in house or in its immediate surroundings and not associated with traffic, vehicles or sport.6 The most common ones being drowning, burns, falls, poisoning and injuries from sharp, pointed objects or animals. In 2015, drowning contributed to 7.2% of all the accidental deaths, whereas accidental poisoning, fire and falls led to 6.3%, 4.3% and 4.1% of all accidental deaths respectively in India. 7 Every year more than five lakh individuals get injured due to domestic accidents. 8 This leads to physical disabilities, permanent deformities, psychological problems, premature death, economic burden and grief - not only to the victim but also to the entire family. 

Domestic accidents depend on the physical and social environment and also on the functional capacity of the individual. Different age groups have disparate factors like the elderly age group have low vision, slow reflexes while the toddlers do not achieve the cognitive maturity and coordination to predict the hazardous steps when not under supervision.9,10 It is generally accepted that domestic accidents are preventive and can be drastically reduced by effective measures and safety consciousness, e.g. preventing poor unplanned house constructions in urban slums. 11 Most of the domestic injuries are considered to be minor injuries and do not reach the level of health care intervention. 12 Whereas, on the other hand, hospital- based studies focus only on the cases which necessitate medical attention and so will not reflect the nature of domestic accidents occurring in the community. 13 So facility-based studies do not represent the true burden of domestic injuries occurring in the community. Hence there is a paucity of knowledge regarding domestic accidents and its awareness. 14 To address this gap, we conducted a house-to house community-based study to find burden of injuries occurring at the household level in our field practice area. Moreover, this information would aid in conducting health education sessions at the community level and launch a comprehensive injury prevention programme in our service areas. Thus, this study aims to find the prevalence of domestic accidents, the household safety practices and their association with socio-demographic factors in selected urban wards of Puducherry.

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Prevalence and pattern of domestic accidents in the field practice area of Jawaharlal Institute of Urban Health Centre, Puducherry: a cross-sectional analytical study.

Background: Domestic injuries contribute a major proportion in the prevalence of injuries. Although domestic injuries lead to significant morbidity and mortality, most of these injuries are under recognized. Methodology: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 households. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information on the injuries that occurred in previous 6 months, and the results were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: The prevalence of domestic injury was 4.8% among 839 individuals interviewed. The majority of the injuries occurred among males, and all injuries were unintentional in nature. Forty-two percent of the injuries occurred in hand which was the most common site. More than 50% of the injuries occurred due to handling of sharps, and 62.5% of injuries were mild in nature. No domestic injury-related deaths had occurred. Conclusions: Majority of the domestic injuries occurred due to handling of sharps. Careful handling of sharps, preventing handling of sharps by children would help reducing the occurrence of domestic injuries in this community.

Prevalence and pattern of domestic injuries in rural area of Tamil Nadu

Introduction: Household accidents cause injury to the affected individual along with stress and economic strain to the family. Studies on household accident prone areas in rural area of India are rare.
Objective: The present study was conducted to assess the prevalence of domestic accidents and rural household accident prone areas.
Methods: The study was done in the village Pilkhani, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh from October to December 2018. Sixty houses were randomly selected in the village. Information regarding household accident prone areas was gathered by interviewing the head of the family or the adult informant and accident prone areas were observed in the household. The analysis was done using MS Excel software.
Results: Prevalence of domestic accidents was 8.25% with falls being the most common. Uneven brick/kacha floor, floor at different levels, improper electric fittings, fodder cutting machine and low clothes line were frequently found accident prone areas identified in the households.
Conclusion: In order to prevent and control the domestic accidents, creation of awareness among the community and inculcation of household safety measures using Information Education and Communication interventions have to be strived for along with structural modification of accident prone areas in the household.

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Study of household accident prone areas in rural Saharanpur

Objetivo: identificar a presenca e as acoes de adultos no local da ocorrencia de acidentes toxicologicos infantis e os primeiros socorros realizados. Metodo: estudo transversal, com analise retrospectiva de fichas de ocorrencia toxicologica de criancas de zero a 4 anos, arquivadas em um centro de assistencia toxicologica. Resultados: analisaram-se 1.012 fichas. O perfil era: sexo masculino (54,9%), com idade de 1 a 2 anos (64,3%) e medicamentos como principais agentes (39,6%). A maioria dos acidentes aconteceu na residencia (94,8%), com criancas acompanhadas dos pais ou outro responsavel adulto. Imediatamente apos o reconhecimento do episodio de intoxicacao, 229 (22,6%) adultos realizaram socorros domiciliares e as principais acoes informadas foram realizacao de descontaminacao do local afetado por lavagem e por meio mecânico (49,3%); administracao de liquidos para diluicao do agente (32,8%); e inducao de vomito/emese (16,6%). Conclusao: a maioria dos socorros domiciliares realizados nao teve evidencia cientifica e estava ligada a crencas familiares. Descritores: Saude da crianca. Envenenamento. Substâncias toxicas. Acidentes domesticos. Cuidados de enfermagem

Intoxicação na primeira infância: socorros domiciliares realizados por adultos

Background: Domestic accidents are emerging as a new epidemic. They result in significant mortality and morbidity. Majority of the domestic accidents are preventable.

Objective: To study the occurrence of domestic accident and awareness on its prevention in an urban community. 

Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 members residing in an urban area. Complete information was collected through a semi-structured, pretested questionnaire. Domestic accident was considered when any of these individuals had met with an accident inside the house or in the immediate surroundings of the house. The data were analyzed using appropriate statistical software (MS Excel and SPSS, version 20).

Results: This study on the assessment of the level of awareness on preventive measures revealed that 40% respondents used apron while working in kitchen, 58% did not have a first-aid kit in the kitchen; 84% respondents said that subdue fire caused by electricity should be dealt with pouring water on fire; and 56% respondents were unaware that keeping the handle of the pan toward oneself may lead to tipping on contents on them and cause injury. Sixty-eight percent respondents were unaware about the storage of medicines in cool and dry places.

Conclusions: The most common accident reported was cuts. The level of awareness regarding domestic accidents was not high among the residents and hence there is a serious need to address the problem through public health education.

Bhagyashree Deshmankar

Papers

Domestic accidents: an emerging threat to community -