Unintentional injuries and socio-psychological correlates among school-going adolescents in Mozambique

ABSTRACT

Background: The study aimed to report on the prevalence and socio-psychological correlates of non-fatal injury among school-going adolescents in Mozambique.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from the 2015 ‘Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS)’ included 1918 students (median age 15 years, interquartile range = 3 years) that were representative of all students in secondary school in Mozambique.

Results: The proportion of participants with one or multiple injuries in the past 12 months was 55.7%, 30.0% once and 25.7% multiple times. The most frequent cause of the reported injury was ‘traffic injury’ (7.6%), followed by ‘fall’ (7.0%), 'poisoning' (5.0%), ‘struck or hit by person’ (3.6%) and ‘struck or hit by object’ (2.6%). The most common injury type was ‘fracture or dislocation’ (9.8%), followed by ‘cut or stab wound’ (7.5%), burns (2.7%) and ‘gunshot wound’ (2.6%). In adjusted logistic regression analysis, current tobacco use, attending physical education classes three or more days a week and psychological distress were associated with annual injury.

Conclusion: A high prevalence of annual injury was found and several variables were identified that could be targeted in injury prevention programmes in this school population.