Journal of Aging Science

Abstract

Child Injury Burden and Risk Profile in a Bangladeshi Rural Community: An Age-Group Related Overview

Nawroz Afreen, Mallick Masum Billah, Meerjady Sabrina Flora

Background: Child injury was a growing public health problem in Bangladesh. Recent information on variation in patterns of non-fatal injury, severity, and risk-profile in rural Bangladeshi children was unavailable. This study aimed to determine current burden of non-fatal injury and risks considering severity in disability-days in child age-groups in a rural community.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in randomly chosen children (<18-year) from selected households of village-clusters with pretested semi-structured questionnaires and checklist for household-environment between May-June 2018 in selected sub-district. Besides descriptive analysis, Chi-square test and Odds Ratio with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were calculated for identifying risk profiles. An injury was considered minor when regular activities were hampered <30 days and major when ≥ 30 days. A minor injury must have occurred in previous three months and a major injury in previous year.

Results: For 918 children, prevalence of major and minor injury were 2.4% (95% CI 1.5-3.6) and 7.4% (95% CI 5.8-9.3) with highest in 5-9 and 1-4-year respectively. Commonest pattern was fall injury, followed by cut injury, transport injury and burn for both major and minor type, with variations in age-groups. For major-injury, risks included male gender (OR 4.6, 95% CI 1.5-18.9), households with dumped garbage (OR 5.0, 95% CI 1.5-26.7) and exclusive/complementary use of non-electric power-source (OR 5, 95% CI 1.2-16.1). For minor-injury, risks for all age groups were ≥ 5 working hours/day of a mother (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.2-7.2), supervision of <6 children during her works (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.05-13) and households with open fireplaces (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.3-7.2). After analyzing minor injury considering specific age-groups, mothers’ ≥ 5 working hours and child-supervision were particularly found risky for 1-4 year; open fireplaces for 5-9 year; along with male gender, uneducated mothers for 10-14 year.

Conclusion: Prevalence of major and minor injuries were though lower, still required intervention for further reduction and the variabilities in burden, patterns, severity and risks among age-groups could be considered for prioritizing interventions. As risk characteristics were not well established in a cross-sectional study, further case- control study with a qualitative part was recommended for assimilation of risk-profile to guide policy formulation.

Published Date: 2022-03-31; Received Date: 2022-03-01