Playground equipment and trampoline injury in children (0 to 14 years)

April 2010

There were 12,049 playground equipment and trampoline-related injuries to Victorian children aged 0-14 years over the three-year period January 2006 to December 2008 recorded on the Victorian Emergency Minimum dataset (VEMD).

Age: More than half of all emergency department (ED) presentations were children aged 5-9 years (58%). Children aged 0-4 years and 10-14 years accounted for 24% and 18% of cases, respectively.

Gender: Males and females each accounted for 50% of all cases.

Equipment type: Among the 0-4 year-olds and 10-14 year-olds, trampolines were the most common cause of injury, accounting for 40% and 46% of cases, respectively. However, among 5-9 year olds, monkey bar injuries were most common (43%).

Among girls, injuries most commonly occurred on monkey bars (37%), followed by trampolines (31%) and slides (10%). However, among boys trampolines were associated with the majority of injuries (35%), followed by monkey bars (24%) and slides (14%).

Figure 1: Play equipment injury by gender

Cause: Eighty-two percent of play equipment and trampoline injury were caused by falls, with 55% of these falls being over 1 metre, and 26% falling less than 1 metre.

Injury type: Fractures accounted for 47% of all injuries, followed by sprain or strain (20%), and open wounds (10%).

Body region: Overall, 57% of all injuries were to the upper extremity, commonly to the forearm (31%), wrist (29%) and elbow (25%). Head/face/neck accounted for 18% of all injuries, followed by lower extremity injury which accounted for 16%.

Place of occurrence: Thirty-six percent of all injuries occurred in the home, followed by school, day care centre or public administration area (32%), and place for recreation (19%).

Discharge status: Of the 12,049 ED presentations for play equipment injury, 82% were treated in the ED and discharged home. Seventeen percent of the injured children were admitted to hospital for further treatment.

Recommendations:
Kidsafe NSW has a number of fact sheets regarding playground safety and design issues: kidsafensw.org/playsafety/PAU_fact_sheets.htm

Data source: Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD January 2006 to December 2008 (3 years)
Search Strategy: Cases were selected by searching text narratives using the terms ‘monkey,' ‘slide,' ‘swing,' ‘seesaw,' ‘flying fox,' ‘adventure,' ‘merry go round,' ‘fireman,' ‘fort,' ‘playground equipment,' ‘trampoline,' ‘whizz,' and ‘octopus'. Selected cases were then manually checked for relevance and unrelated cases excluded.