A study of injuries sustained by young people of school-age was carried out on 327 adolescents, followed up over a period of 3 years. The study showed that 46% of the boys and 25% of the girls had at least one accident between the age of 11 and 18 years, and that 17% and 6% respectively had several. In order to interpret these figures, the youngsters' sex and age and the recurring nature of the accident have to be taken into account. It was shown that the high masculine morbidity could be partly attributed to the typically adolescent tendency to take risks. However, when the accident occurs during puberty and is repeated (as was the case for 14% of the boys), it can be a sign of more serious problems. Injuries sustained by girls, which are less frequent and of a different nature, cannot be interpreted in the same way and require further examination. Adolescents who have had serious accidents at an early age suffer from an accumulation of insomnia, school- related and personal problems. The increasing accident rate during adolescence is a factor common to most countries. There is agreement between mortality and morbidity data on: the increasing incidence of accidents between the age of 15 and 24 years, whatever the type of accident; high masculine morbidity and mortality; high recurrence rate. Analytical and clinical research has brought to light a certain number of risk factors which are principally related to: socioeconomic or family situation: the cultural or economic status of the family, parental separation, unsatisfactory relationship between parents, alcohol problems in the family; or the psychological characteristics of the adolescents themselves: risk- taking aggressive and antisocial behaviour, depressive tendencies; or the psychopathology of the adolescent: aggressivity towards self or others, suicide or attempted suicide; or other environmental factors, such as lack of surveillance, low technical standards, or behavioural factors such as negligence and drinking. In most of these analytical studies either the type of accident or its severity were taken into account, but rarely both. Other determining factors such as sex, the age at which the accident occurred and its recurrence were often omitted in the explanatory process. The studies mainly concerned hospitalized injuries which meant that minor accidents could not be taken into account. In addition, the studies were often cross- sectional, so that it was not possible to ascertain the predictive value of the risk factors.
Samenvatting