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.