Injuries in children (Home injuries) (Page 1 of 3)

Home injuries are very common in children.  Children under school age, in particular, spend a lot of time playing at home, inside and outside in the garden.  As a result of this, children under 5 are more susceptible to having an unintentional injury in the home.  Emergency admissions to hospital as a result of an unintentional injury in the home account for 1 in 13 of all emergency hospital admissions for children aged under 15.  They also account for just over a third of those emergency admissions, which are as a direct result of an unintentional injury.

Not all children who have an accident at home will be admitted to hospital.  The severity of the injury means that the injury will sometimes be treated in the home using first aid.  They may also be treated in a primary care setting (e.g. GP surgery), in a minor injuries unit or the Accident and Emergency department of a hospital.  The tables and charts in this section only include cases where the child was admitted to hospital as a result of an unintentional injury in the home.

Figure 6 and table 13 show that children in the 1-4 age group account for more than half of all emergency admissions from an unintentional injury in the home.  In this particular age group, males have approximately 23% more admissions than females (males=1,038; females=845).  Children in this age group do not have as strong a perception of danger as those in the older age groups, 5-9 and 10-14.  This is reflected in the percentage of children being admitted from these age groups, 20.8% and 10.4% respectively.  In these two age groups, the same pattern as the 1-4 age group of more males than females being admitted prevails.

^{Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes.}

In 2006, there were 26 childhood deaths as a result of an unintentional injury. Table 14 shows that just one of these was attributable to an injury in the home.