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Injury surveillance in the New South Wales prison system
Author(s) -
Butler T.,
Kariminia A.,
Trevathan L.,
Bond J.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
health promotion journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 2201-1617
pISSN - 1036-1073
DOI - 10.1071/he04151
Subject(s) - prison , medicine , occupational safety and health , injury prevention , injury surveillance , suicide prevention , incidence (geometry) , poison control , accidental , medical emergency , family medicine , criminology , psychology , pathology , physics , acoustics , optics
Issue addressed To describe the incidence and patterns of injuries sustained by inmates at two correctional centres in New South Wales, Australia. Methods A prospective study monitoring clinic presentations for injuries between July and December 2002. Nurses located within the clinics recorded injuries on a surveillance form and subsequently entered the data into a centralised database. Results During the study period, there were 160 new injury presentations to the two prison clinics; 109 were for accidental injuries and 50 for injuries resulting from violence. The most common types of injuries among prisoners were sports (32.5) and assaults (24.4). Sprains and strains were the most common types of sports injuries. Assaults occurred in similar proportions in both violent and non‐violent offenders (26% vs. 24%, p=0.9) and were more common on Sundays. Most injuries (28%) occurred in the prison yard. Seventeen per cent of all injuries happened in the workplace with 63% caused by machinery. Workplace machinery accounted for half of all eye injuries. Analysis of the text descriptions identified that welding flash was responsible for 82% of all eye injuries. So what? Injury surveillance based on clinic presentations in the correctional setting is feasible and has potential to be used for the development of prison‐specific prevention programs. Surveillance is also valuable in describing the dynamics of the prison environment.