| Objectives. To describe the rates and patterns of unintentional injuries among primary and middle school students and to explore their risk factors. To evaluate the effectiveness of an injury prevention program based on health education on the unintentional injuries among the students.; Methods. The cluster randomized controlled trial was used for this study. At baseline, a cross-sectional survey of all students attending 6 primary and 4 middle schools (with over 10,000 students) selected randomly from all schools in Maanshan City of Anhui Province in eastern China was conducted to collect information on unintentional injuries occurring in the 12-month period before the survey. The schools were then randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups with 3 primary and 2 middle schools in each group. Follow-up surveys were conducted bimonthly after the baseline survey and covered a period of one year from May 1st 2002 to April 30th 2003. During the follow-up at the 10th month, we repeated the injury-related behaviors assessment, and at the same time collected information on the assessment of students by teachers.; Results. In the baseline survey, the annual person-based injury rate for overall injuries was 16.42 per 100 students, the annual event-based injury rate was 19.68 per 100 students. The average number of injuries per injured student was 1.20. 2.56% of all students or 15.61% of injured students had recurrent injuries and they incurred 29.58% of all injury events. Only 1.86% of the overall injuries resulted in hospitalization. Fall was the most common external cause.; Poor health status, high injury-related behavior index, high study-related stress index, lack of parental emphasis on road safety, higher family income, family with single father, back home late after school and alcohol drinking were important risk factors for overall injuries. Subgroup analyses showed that poor health status, high injury-related behavior index, high study-related stress index, alcohol-drinking behavior were common risk factors for school injuries, home injuries, injuries on the way to school, falls and transportation-related injuries, as well as recurrent injuries. Higher educational level of the mother was a protective factor for the various types of injuries. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
