Etiology of Head Injuries in Southwestern Nigeria: A Public Health Perspective

Background and Objective: To effectively carry out appropriate prevention programme for head injury there must be adequate epidemiological data. This is currently scarce in many developing countries including Nigeria. This study was designed to determine the etiology of head injury among patients presenting in our hospital between July 1993 and June 1998. We also determined the relationship between age of patients and the etiology of head injury. Methodology: We obtained demographic data and etiology of wounding in all patients who presented with head injury in our accident and emergency room. These were obtained from the admission records. Simple statistical analysis was subsequently done. Results: We reviewed 1130 patients over the study period. Passenger motor vehicular accident was the leading cause (65.3%) of head injury in our patients. This was followed by fall (16.4%). Pedestrian motor vehicular accident and fall were more likely to cause head injury in pediatric patients compared to adult patients. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the preventive measures that have been used to reduce the incidence and impacts of head injury in other parts of the world can be applied to our community. The high incidence of fall and pedestrian motor vehicular accidents in pediatric age groups suggests negligence and lack of supervision of the underage.