Abstract
An inner-city emergency department (ED) visit provides an opportunity for contact
with high-risk adolescents to promote injury prevention. Objectives: To identify the
prevalence of injuries sustained over the past year by teens presenting to an inner-city
ED, and to identify factors associated with recent injury to inform future ED-based
injury prevention initiatives. Methods: Over 1 year, 7 days a week, from 1:00–11:00
p.m., patients aged 14–18 years presenting to the ED participated in a survey regarding
past-year risk behaviors and injuries. Results: Of the entire group of teens presenting
to the ED (n = 1128) who completed the survey (83.8% response rate), 46% were male,
and 58% were African-American. Past-year injuries were reported by 768 (68.1%) of
the teens; 475 (61.8%) of those reported an unintentional injury and 293 (38.1%) reported
an intentional injury. One-third of all youth seeking care reported a past-year sports-related
injury (34.5%) or an injury related to driving or riding in a car (12.3%), and 8.2%
reported a gun-related injury. Logistic regression found that binge drinking (adjusted
odds ratio [AOR] 1.95) and illicit weapon carrying (AOR 2.31) predicted a past-year
intentional injury. African-American youth (AOR 0.56) and those receiving public assistance
(AOR 0.73) were less likely to report past-year unintentional injuries. Conclusions:
Adolescents seeking care in an inner-city ED, regardless of the reason for seeking
care, report an elevated prevalence of recent injury, including violence. Future injury
screening and prevention efforts should consider universal screening of all youth
seeking ED care.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 11, 2010
Accepted:
November 9,
2009
Received in revised form:
October 29,
2009
Received:
June 24,
2009
Footnotes
This project was supported by a grant (#14889) from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
