Objective: To compare data from an epidemiological survey on injuries with a survey conducted in hospitals on injuries in the same areas and to find out the differences and shortcomings of hospital data in describing the feature of injuries in an area.
Methods: Comparing the causes and age distributions of injuries from the two surveys.
Results: The first 4 leading causes of injuries from the population-based survey were mechanical injuries, falls, burns/scalds and traffic accidents while the first 4 leading causes of hospital-based survey were traffic accidents, assault, mechanical injuries and burns/scalds. The differences of the age distributions of these leading causes between the two surveys were significant except mechanical injuries.
Conclusion: Differences were noticed between population-based survey and hospital-based survey. It should be cautions when using hospital data to describe the features of injuries in a certain area.