Injury Rate of Adolescents in the Czech Republic

Overview

Background.
Injuries of adolescents form within problems of overall injuries of the population a specific groupwith regard to age-specific features of adolescents. At the age injuries and the main cause of mortality and non-fatalinjuries are one of the main causes of temporary or permanent work inability of adolescents. The objective of thepresent study was to obtain accurate data on the type, site and course of injuries of adolescents in the Czech Republic,and to provide basic data for preventive provisions and to create conditions for evaluating their effect.Methods and Results. The investigation was implemented at the beginning of 1997: 84 184 adolescents aged 15- 18 years participated: 53 150 students attending secondary schools and 31 034 apprentices from training centresfor apprentices. In the course of one year 14 462 adolescents, i.e. 17.2 % (20.7 % boys, 14.3 % girls) contracted aninjury. There were 15.5 % secondary school students and 20.0 % apprentices who suffered an injury.Statistical significance was obtained using chi-square tests for contingency tables (P 0.05).The most frequent injury was a distorsion, dislocation and fracture (60.3 %), the most frequent place of injury wasthe school or training centre (25.2 %) and the highest risk activity was physical training in school and organizedsports (34.2 %).Hospitalization in association with injuries was recorded in 8.7 %. The number of adolescents suffering fromlog-term or permanent sequelae of the injury (12.7 %) was almost double as compared with equally affected olderschoolchildren.Conclusions. From the presented data ensues the necessity to modify the environment and ensure act ive anti-injuryactivities of teachers, psychologists, trainers, school medical officers and sports doctors to reduce the number ofinjuries in schools and training centres for apprentices. The economic losses caused by injuries in this age groupamount to billions of crowns every years.

Key words:
adolescents, injury, accident.