[Study on the events of nonfatal drowning among primary and middle school students in a rural town of Guangdong province, 2006].
OBJECTIVE
To understand the incidence and characteristics of nonfatal drowning among primary and middle school students in rural area and to provide basic information for intervention.


METHODS
A rural town was selected and all students from 3th-8th grades, 10th grade and 11th grade were studied. All data were collected, using a self-administrated questionnaires which was guided by investigator.


RESULTS
The overall incidence rate of nonfatal drowning was 5.65% (549/9732) and were 7.69%, 5.80%, 2.39% for primary, secondary and high school students, respectively. Male students had a higher rate (7.14%) than that of females (4.03%). The incidence rates of non-treated, treated in emergency and under hospitalization were 4.52%, 0.77% and 0.35%. The major reasons of drowning were swimming (46.88%), falling into waters (15.67%), diving (13.79%) and rescuing others (6.24%). The proportion of drowning occurred in the afternoon, evening, at noon or in the morning were 59.94%, 15.64%, 14.77% and 9.65% respectively. The common sites of drowning were river/lake (42.48%), swimming pool (19.56%), reservoir (11.39%) and pond (4.38%). 66.76% of the drowning cases were witnessed by other person, and 17.86% were conscious when being removed from waters.


CONCLUSIONS
The incidence of nonfatal drowning among students in rural areas was high, and the natural body of waters was the most common site causing drowning while swimming was the major reason of drowning. Intervention targeting on primary and middle school students in rural should be carried out to reduce the incidence.
Ma
Wen-Jun
WJ
Guangdong Province Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou 510300, China.
Song
Xiu-Ling
XL
Xu
Hao-Feng
HF
Yan
Run-Tao
RT
Nie
Shao-Ping
SP
Xu
Yan-Jun
YJ
Li
Jian-Sen
JS
Zhang
Yu-Run
YR
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D004332:Drowning / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data