Objectives : In recent years, Korea has experienced a loss of manpower and economy due to accidents. The consequences have been comprehensive. Nevertheless, there have been few recent Korean srudies on adult accidents. Therefore, this study was carried out to examine the incidence pattern of accidents for 2 months before entering university among university freshmen.
Methods : The subjects were 1,920 university freshmen who visited the university health center for health examination from March 8 to 12, 2004, and self-reported questionnaire was given to the subjects. The authors developed a questionnaire including age, gender, place and type of high school, experience of accidents, occurrence time and type of accidents and so on.
Results : The monthly incidence of accident was 9.9 per 1,000 population. The accident cases were 28 in male and to in female, and the incidence of males was significantly higher than females. The frequent accident states were 15 cases in ’Ordinary life’ (39.8%), 10 in ’Sports activities’ (26.3%), 9 in ’Walking’ (23.7%) and so on. The accident types were 13 cases of ’Tumbling over’ (34.2%), 12 of ’Crash’ (31.6%), 8 of ’Traffic accident’ (21.0%) and so on. The frequent injury types were 19 cases of ’Sprain’ (50.0%), 15 of ’Contusion’ (38.4%) and 2 of ’Laceration’ (5.3%). One’s own carelessness was the most frequent cause of accident (65.8%). After the accident, 28 cases(73.7%) visited the hospital, 7 (18.4%) were hospitalized, and 3 (7.9%) undelwent surgery.
Conclusions : Because the most frequent cause of accidents was one’s own carelessness, self-consciousness and attention are needed. The authors expect that this study will go far toward increasing concern of researchers and administrators for the accidents among adults.
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