Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit Faculty Publish Work on Childhood Injuries in Oman
More than three out of 10 injury-related hospital admissions in Oman were children under 15 years of age, according to a new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit.
Study findings came from data from Oman’s Khoula and Nizwa Hospitals—and looked at injury characteristics, such as external cause of injury, place of injury, care at scene, and injury severity score.
Published November 12 in BMJ Paediatrics Open, the paper was led by JH-IIRU Associate Director Amber Mehmood.
“Through this research, we’ve found that an alarming number of injuries were of vulnerable populations, such as children under 15 years old,” said Mehmood. “These injuries—coming from falls, home injuries, and burns—comprise totals that highlight the need for age-targeted interventions and injury control programs.”
To review the epidemiology and risk factors for childhood injuries, the team assessed data from November 2014 and April 2015 of patients with a diagnosis of injury and trauma admitted to the hospital, as well as those who had trauma team activation in the emergency department.
Out of more than 2,600 cases, nearly 800 were of children, ages 15 and younger. The evaluation found that more than one-third were children 1-5 years of age. Two-thirds of all cases were males. More than half of all the cases were from transport injuries and the most common anatomical injury among all children brought into the hospital were head injuries. It was also found that children with head, face and neck injuries had higher odds of undergoing surgical treatment.
“Childhood injuries in Oman: retrospective review of a multicentre trauma registry data” was written by Amber Mehmood, Priyanka Agrawal, Katharine A Allen, Ammar Al-Kashmiri, Ali Al-Busaidi, and Adnan Ali Hyder.
The research was supported by The Research Council of Oman through grant #TRC/SRG/RS/13/003.
To read the full paper via open access, please click here.