Objective: To describe the distribution of injuries among the elderly through hospital based National Injury Surveillance System (NISS), and to provide basic information for prevention of injury among the elderly.
Methods: Data on injuries among the elderly aged 60 years and above was descriptively analyzed from the Chinese NISS from 2006 to 2008. Using the data of NISS from 2006 to 2008, information was collected on those cases who were diagnosed as injuries for the first-time in the site hospitals. Information included demographic characteristics, features of the injury events, and clinical characteristics of injuries. SPSS 16.0 software was used for data analysis.
Results: The leading causes of injuries among the elderly were: falls, road traffic injuries, and blunt injuries, which were in total accounting for more than 70% of all the injuries among the elderly. Most of the injuries occurred at home (46.25%, 44.44%, 46.23%), on the roads (30.95%, 28.51%, 28.61%) and in the public residences (8.89%, 11.57%, 11.25%). Recreation activates (42.14%, 48.09%, 48.59%), housework/study (21.15%, 18.21%, 18.15%) and driving (13.67%, 13.80%, 13.56%) were the three major activities when injuries took place. Most injuries among the elderly were unintentional (91.34%, 92.84%, 93.09%). The leading causes of suicide of the elderly were poisoning and sharp injury. The most common natures of injuries were bruise (36.07%, 38.18%, 38.50%), fractures (25.65%, 22.47%, 23.77%), and sharp/bite/open injuries (17.19%, 18.21%, 17.46%) while the most injured part of bodies were head (26.32%, 25.59%, 25.90%), lower limbs (25.74%, 25.70%, 25.26%) and upper limbs (21.01%, 21.14%, 21.37%). Most of the injuries were minor ones (60.53%, 65.09%, 63.58%), and patients mostly went home after treatment (64.11%, 68.53%, 67.99%).
Conclusion: According to NISS, the proportion of injuries among the elderly in all injuries kept increasing from 2006 to 2008, while distribution of injuries among the elderly being stable. Falls was the most common injury type for the elderly which also brought along bad outcome. Falls was the priority for injury prevention among the elderly.