Unintentional injury and social correlates among in-school adolescents in seven Caribbean countries

The aim of this study was to assess estimates of the prevalence and social correlates of unintentional injury among adolescents in the Caribbean. Cross-sectional national data from the Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS) included 11571 students from seven Caribbean countries chosen by a two-stage cluster sample design to represent all students in grades 6-10 in each country. The percentage of adolescents reporting one or more serious injuries within the past 12 months was 54.3% for all countries, ranging from 43.1% in Dominica to 59.5% in Jamaica. By major activity of all survey participants, fall (11.4%) was the leading external cause of injury, followed by fighting (5.0%), something fell on me or hit me (4.9%) and vehicle accident (4.3%). In multivariate regression analysis it was found that being male, having hunger (as an indicator for low socioeconomic status), substance use (smoking and alcohol use), psychological distress (anxiety or worried and suicide ideation) and truancy were found to be associated with annual injury prevalence rates. Several risk factors were identified which can be utilized in reaching these young people for change strategies in injury prevention programmes.