Unintentional Injuries among School-Aged Children in Palestine : Findings from the National Study of Palestinian Schoolchildren (HBSC-WBG2006)‎

Abstract EN

Purpose.

This study describes the nonfatal injuries among adolescents in Palestine.

Methods.

The 2006 Palestinian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) is a cross-sectional survey.

Students of grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 completed a modified version of the international HBSC questionnaire, resulting in 15,963 students (47.3% boys and 52.7% girls) included in this study (56.9% from the West Bank and 43.1% from Gaza).

Results.

Of the total 15,963 adolescents, 47.6% were injured, with boys (53.5%) being statistically higher than girls (42.1%) (P<0.001).

The prevalence of those injured more than once decreased by age and was also found significantly higher in boys than in girls (27.3% and 17.9%, resp.) (P<0.001).

Children living in low FAS families showed significantly lower ratios of injuries than those living in moderate and high FAS families (P<0.001).

Injuries while biking were significantly higher among boys (46.3%) than girls (41.7%) (P<0.001), and injuries while walking/running were more prevalent among girls (32.5%) than boys (28.0%) (P<0.001).

Conclusion.

Despite these considerably high rates, injury remains relatively underappreciated.

Results of this study are useful to develop a national injury prevention program aimed at enhancing the safety of Palestinian adolescents.