Evaluation of home accident cases whom applied to emergency services of Dicle University Medical Faculty

73 SUMMARY Objective: Home accidents became important puplic health problems as causing worldwide deaths, disabilities and financial loses with gradually increasing ratios and in fact, they could be prevented by preventive measurements and education. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the types of the home accidents, the conditions where they happened and sociodemographic features of the sufferers so the preventive measures had to be taken in order to prevent them. Materials and Methods: 316 home injury cases applied to Dicle University Faculty of Medicine Emergency Services between March and June, 2003 were evaluated, their accident types, age groups, genders, clinics and socioeconomic cultural positions were classified; the datas were examined by the SPSS 10.0 statistic programme. Results: Most of the 316 cases were children (89.5%) with the families of low socioeconomic cultural levels and mean age was 8.0±1 1.7. Of the patients 33.2% were intoxications, 29.1% were burns and20.9% were falls. 55.4% (n=175) of the cases were male where 44.6% (n=141) were female. The children under age of five were constituted 54.8% (n=173) of the cases. Home accidents were occured mostly between the hours of 07.00-17.00 and in the living room (28.5%) and the kitchen (%21.5).The victims were generally crowded families with a lot of children living in the small and insufficient houses. The complication and death ratios were 5.7% and 1.9%, respectively. Five of the six deaths were the children under five years of age. Conclusion: Being widespreadness and the effects of the home accidents on people's health pointed out that in order to prevent accidents, systematic, national efforts, plans, coordinations and organisations have to be constituted immediately. Therefore, the registration systems for accurate datas and regaining rehabilitation strategies for disable patients have to be developed; the people especially the parents having children under five years of age have to be educated about prevention and the house conditions have to be improved.