Analysis of injury surveillance data from the emergency departments of the hospitals in Penglai City in 2005

Objective The present analysis was made to understand injuries from the emergency departments of the hospitals and provide a scientific basis on which to formulate strategies for the prevention and control of injuries. Methods An injury surveillance system of hospital emergency departments was composed of 3 hospitals randomly sampled in Penglai, one county hospital, one central town hospital and one general town hospital. All cases of injuries who first visited a hospital in 2005 sampled as a surveillance site were included as surveillance subjects. Results 6386 qualified injury report cards, including 4537(71.05%) men and 1846(28.95%) women cases with a ratio of male to female of 2.45:1 and a mean age of 36.8816.40 years, were collected from the three surveillance hospitals. The top three causes of injuries were in turn traffic accident injuries (32.38%), blunt injuries (26.82%) and injuries from fall (26.21%). People in the age groups of 25～ years and 35~years were mostly affected, accounting for 81.90% of the total. Injuries were prone to occur in Aug, Sep, Oct and Nov, with the time of injury occurrence mostly at 0~1 AM, 10~11 AM and 3~4 PM. Traffic accident injuries affected farmers, herdsmen and fishermen and students more, with blunt injuries most often occuring among workers. The morjority of injuries were caused by accidents, constituting 91.01% of the total injuries. Conclusion Traffic accident injuries have resulted in grave threatening to the health of local inhabitants, especially the work force. It is therefore urgent to take measures for the prevention and control of traffic accident injuries and other injuries.