222 Combining survey and register based data to estimate burden of injuries among adolescents

Abstract

Background Children and adolescents have the highest risk of injury. Emergency department (ED) data provide the best opportunity for estimating the burden of hospital treated injuries. Survey based data remains the only source of information for out of hospital medically treated injuries in many countries. The purpose of this study was to describe the incidence of selected injuries among adolescents in 16 European countries using survey-based and registry based methods. Methods Survey based data were collected during the 2013/2014 wave of the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC) study in 42 countries. Children reported the number of medically treated injuries for the last 12 months, the severity of the most serious injury as well as the place of occurrence and the activity when injured. The Registry based data supplied to the European Injury Data Base (IDB) for the period 2013–2014 provided detailed information about causes and circumstances of ED treated injuries for the same period and age group. Results Detailed analyses were possible using IDB data from 16 countries and HBSC data from 42 countries. Both sources confirm an inter-country variability for burden of injuries among adolescents. Due to different methodologies in defining an injury case, comparison is not always possible between registry based and survey based data collection. Conclusions Survey based and register based data can be used as complementary sources of information to have a full picture of injury burden among adolescents in many European countries.