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Public health
Research
Injuries caused by pets in Asian urban households: a cross-sectional telephone survey
  1. Emily Y Y Chan1,
  2. Yang Gao2#,
  3. Liping Li3,
  4. Po Yi Lee1
  1. 1JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
  2. 2Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China
  3. 3Injury Prevention Research Center, Medical College of Shantou University, Shantou, China
  1. Correspondence to Professor Emily YY Chan; emily.chan{at}cuhk.edu.hk

Abstract

Objectives Little is known about pet-related injuries in Asian populations. This study primarily aimed to investigate the incidence rate of pet-related household injuries in Hong Kong, an urban Chinese setting.

Setting Cantonese-speaking non-institutionalised population of all ages in Hong Kong accessible by telephone land-line.

Participants A total of 43 542 telephone numbers were dialled and 6570 residents successfully completed the interviews.

Primary and secondary outcome measures Data of pet-related household injuries in the previous 12 months, pet ownership and socio-demographic characteristics were collected with a questionnaire. Direct standardisation of the incidence rates of pet-related household injuries by gender and age to the 2009 Hong Kong Population Census was estimated. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to estimate risks of socio-demographic factors and pet ownership for the injury.

Results A total of 84 participants experienced pet-related household injuries in the past 12 months, with an overall person-based incidence rate of 1.28%. The majority of the victims were injured once (69.6%). Cats (51.6%) were the most common pets involved. Pet owners were at an extremely higher risk after controlling for other factors (adjusted OR: 52.0, 95% CI 22.1 to 98.7). Females, the unmarried, those with higher monthly household income and those living in lower-density housing were more likely to be injured by pets.

Conclusions We project a pet-related household injury incidence rate of 1.24% in the general Hong Kong population, with 86 334 residents sustaining pet-related injuries every year. Pet ownership puts people at extremely high risk, especially the unmarried. Further studies should focus on educating pet owners to reduce pet-related injuries in urban Greater China.

  • pet-related injury
  • urban
  • socio-demographic
  • pet ownership
  • China

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012813

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    Footnotes

    • YG and EYYC contributed equally.

    • Contributors EYYC and YG participated in planning the study, data collection, interpreting the results and final paper writing. LL and PYL participated in data collection, interpreting the results and final paper writing. EYYC obtained research funding. YG wrote the first draft of the article. All authors were involved in planning the article, critical review and editing of the first draft and subsequent revisions to the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding This project is funded by Health and Health Services Research Fund, Food and Health Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong SAR (grant no. 06070491). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Department of Health, HKSAR.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval Survey and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.