EPIDEMIOLOGIC PATTERNS OF DOMESTIC ACCIDENTS AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Domestic Accidents And Preventive Measures

Abstract

Objective: To determine the patterns of domestic accidents in community and to assess the awareness of participants regarding their prevention.
Study Design: Cross-sectional survey.
Place and Duration of study: Household survey of Hyderabad Pakistan, from Jan to Nov 2015.
Material and Methods: A total of 690 participants were included in the study. The information was collected on standard questionnaire. Information with regards to domestic accidents among the family members in the last one year from the date of study was acquired by interviewing the family head or responsible adult. The association of patterns of domestic accidents with demographic characters of the study participants, preventive measures was also assessed. The data were analyzed using SPSS software. All the data were in categorical format therefore using descriptive statistics frequency and percentages were measured for type of domestic accidents, pattern of domestic accidents and Pearson's chi-squared test (χ2) was used to see association between these variables.
Results: With 78.4% response rate, the prevalence of domestic accidents was found as 55.1%. Domestic accidents were more common in extremes age groups (62.4%), females (55.3%) and in rural population (61.3%). Injuries due to falls were the among commonly reported accidents (34.2%). Death as a consequence of domestic accidents was almost equally recorded among males and females (22.3% males against 23.8% females). Domestic accidents were less reported among those who were already aware about remedies against accidents in households.
Conclusions: Accidents and unintentional injuries in household environment are the neglected issue of public health importance. Extremes of ages, female gender and rural residence are the major risk factors for these events. These can be prevented by raising the level of awareness among at risk population.