Trampoline injury in New Zealand: Emergency care

Abstract

Objective - To examine trampoline related injuries resulting in emergency department attendance. Methods - Cases were identified by searching free text descriptions of the circumstances of injury contained in the records of the emergency department of a large city hospital. Results - 114 cases were identified for a 12 month period, giving an incidence rate of 108 per 100 000 population per year (95% confidence interval = 89 to 129) compared with 9.3 hospital admissions per 100 000 population per year (95% confidence interval = 8.3 to 10.4) for a corresponding period reported in earlier research from New Zealand. This suggested that for every one hospital admission there are approximately 12 emergency department attendances. Of the cases, 95% were aged less than 20 years. As for the earlier research, falls from the trampoline to the surrounding surface were the commonest cause of injury. In the present study, sprains and strains were the commonest type of injury (40%), and the body site most frequently involved was the lower limb (46%). Conclusions - The findings support the conclusion from earlier research that although existing trampoline standards address many of the issues relating to trampoline safety, the need remains for measures to reduce the impact of falls from the trampoline to the ground surface and to prohibit the use of trampolines as unsupervised "play equipment".