Medical Case Reports

Unintentional injuries have become a hot topic worldwide in public health due to the high disability and mortality. Compared with adults, children and adolescents are at higher risk of suffering from unintentional injuries. Unintentional injury is one of the leading causes of death for children of all ages; in 2013, it nearly accounted for 15.4% of the 2.6 million deaths of children aged 1–14 years. In 2017, more than 6 million children and young adults were injured seriously enough who need to visit a hospital emergency department. Unintentional injuries are also a primary cause of disability, which can have a lasting impact on all aspects of the lives of the children, namely, relationships, learning, and games. The severe injury also leads to emotional trauma and financial burden for families and society. Caring for the unintentionally injured child requires specialized knowledge, precise management, and scrupulous attention to detail.

There are substantial regional disparities in causes and characteristics of unintentional pediatric injuries. Previous epidemiologic studies conducted in the United States have reported that unintentional falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injury in children presenting to hospital emergency departments, followed by being struck by or against an object. Another study in Nepal reported that falls are the most common cause of unintentional injuries among children. Due to the rapid development of the economics of society and the widespread use of comprehensive vaccination programs, the healthcare of children in China has changed significantly over the past 50 years. Although the hospital-based passive surveillance of the national injury surveillance system of medical and health institutions has been well established in China, the monitoring hospitals were not stratified according to hospital for children. Considering the majority of younger patients tend to visit the hospitals for children, the unstratified national injury surveillance for the hospital for children might cause a potential bias on the report of unintentional pediatric injuries. Males consistently had higher percentages of injury-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths than females of ages 6-11 in Indiana, accounting for a larger number of injuries overall. The largest difference between males and females was observed in injury inpatient hospitalizations. Males were hospitalized for injuries 1.5 times more than females. In addition to deaths, nonfatal injuries among children can result in trips to the emergency department, hospital stays, and long term disability. In 2013, 168 of New York’s children (ages 0-5) died from injuries. There were also 146,573 children who were treated at a hospital for injuries – 3,352 of them were injured severely enough to require inpatient treatment. An injury affects more than just the child who was injured and may impact family members who are often called upon to care for the injured child. This can result in stress, time away from work, and lost income. The economic impact of injuries includes the costs associated with medical treatment and lost productivity, such as wages and accompanying fringe benefits, or the ability to perform one’s normal household responsibilities.

Acknowledgement

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Conflict of Interest

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