Incidence of accidents and injuries in children under 6 years old in southern Iran: a population-based study

Background: accidents and injuries are the leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality.this study aimed to investigate the incidences of different causes of accidents in children under 6years old.methods: this population-based cross-sectional study was carried out in one year (2016-2017)on a sample of 6000 children in southern iran with a multistage sampling method using astandard checklist for comprehensive child health monitoring.results: the annual incidence rate of accidents was 16% and the mean age of accident victimswas 2.5±1.5 years. of these, 17.3% and 14.8% were male and female, respectively. 25% ofthe children suffered from more than one accident. the most common causes of accidents wereburns (16%), falls (14%), and accidents involving objects (10%). in multivariate analysis, ahigher number of male children in the family and lower child age significantly increased thelikelihood of accidents (p less than 0.05).conclusions: this study was a direct survey of the population, and showed that the incidencerate of accidents in children in southern iran was in line with that of other regions of iran, but lessthan the world average. there was no significant difference in accident etiology and only trendsin etiology were found compared to studies using existing data.