TITLE:
Epidemiology of School-Related Injuries in Belgium. A Better Knowledge for a Better Prevention
AUTHORS:
Christelle Senterre, Michèle Dramaix, Alain Levêque
KEYWORDS:
School-Related Injuries, Injury Determinants, Cross-Sectional Survey, Epidemiology
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.4 No.6,
June
11,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The landmark Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children
around the World have right to safe environment. In Belgium, as in many
countries, children spend, on average, 4.5 weekdays at school, during nearly
8 hours per day. Studies have shown that, the risk of school-related injury exceeds
the risk during leisure time. Literature reports that school accidents account
for 10 to 30% of all accidents among pupils. Despite that, few papers treat of
the school-related injuries. Consequently, based on 1540 accidents forms from
an insurance company, injury places, mechanisms involved, body parts injured
and nature of injuries were described. Head injuries, upper and lower limbs
injuries were investigated in more details. Pearson’s chi-square test was used
to assess the relationships between the variables and multivariate logistic
regression models were used to study the three specific types of injuries cited
above. Gender ratio (M/F) was equal to 1.6 with 25.9% of children under 6
years, 29.4% of 6 - 9 years, 26.9% of 10 - 12 years and 17.8% from 13 years or
more. The major places of injuries were the playground (56.9%) and the physical
education (19.7%). Falls were observed in 52.1% of cases and contacts were
reported in 24.3%. The head injuries account for 40.6%, the upper limbs for
32.0% and the lower limbs injuries for 20.2%. The bruises and the scratches
were observed in 23.8% and the wounds in 21.5%. Fractures were reported in
16.1%. In conclusion, having a routine access to the data from the insurance
companies could be an important source of information for an injury
surveillance system in which the school injuries will be included. Taking into
account this data will require an awareness of all the concerned persons about
the relevance of such a system and a harmonization of the accidental forms.