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Abstract
Objectives The present study aimed to examine the trends and characteristics of fall-related attendance in accident and emergency department (AED) by injury type and the trend in associated average length of stay (LOS) among children and adolescents in Hong Kong.
Design A retrospective approach was adopted.
Setting AED, involving all local public emergency departments from 2001 to 2012.
Participants 63 557 subjects aged 0–19 years with fall injury record were included in the analysis.
Primary outcome measures Fall-related injury number and rates were calculated and reported. Poisson and negative binomial regression models were used to study the trends of injury incidence rate at different body regions.
Results AED fall-related attendance rate increased significantly with an annual percentage change of 4.45 (95% CI 3.43 to 5.47%, p<0.0001). The attendance number of male subjects was persistently higher than female subjects. The standardised rate of fracture injury increased by 1.31% (95% CI 0.56 to 2.05%, p<0.0001) and that of non-fracture injury increased by 9.23% (95% CI 7.07 to 11.43%, p<0.0001) annually. Upper limb was the most frequently fractured location. It included forearm/elbow, shoulder/upper arm and wrist/hand with descending order of frequency. On the contrary, head was the most frequent non-fracture location, followed by forearm/elbow.
Conclusions The rates of fall-related attendance have been increasing and still remain high. There were significant increases in non-fracture injuries. Fractures were most frequently found in the upper extremity of a child while the most common non-fracture location was head. It appears that more efforts should be made and preventive measures should be implemented for children and adolescents in Hong Kong.
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Footnotes
Contributors C-BC conceptualised and designed the study. JC-YL drafted the initial manuscript and performed major parts of the statistical analysis. KT-ST performed literature review and drafted the initial manuscript. TMHL interpreted the results of the data and critically revised the manuscript. FK-WH assisted in performing statistical analysis and revised the methodology of the study. PI critically revised the manuscript and drafted a part of the manuscript. WH-SW critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors have approved the final manuscript as submitted.
Competing interests None declared.
Ethics approval Institutional Review Board of the University of Hong Kong/Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.