A survey of emergency department injury prevention activities

Objective: We identify and describe the breadth and depth of injury prevention programs used by Pennsylvania Emergency Departments (EDs), describe facilitators to hospital implementation, and suggest ways for overcoming barrier and deficiencies.

Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was directed to 193 EDs. The survey instrument used open and closed-ended questions querying the extent of injury prevention activities offered, asking respondents to identify their most important activities and their opinions about enhancing ED injury prevention capabilities.

Results: A total of 68 EDs completed the survey (37%). Nonrespondents did not differ markedly from respondents in terms of hospital characteristics. Most responding EDs (90%) reported conducting at least one injury prevention activity, most commonly community events (66%), and distribution of educational materials (55%). Among their most important activities, almost half (46%) focused on bicycle safety; most were public awareness campaigns, community-based events, or involved distribution of educational materials. Commonly cited barriers to implementation were lack of time (84%), funding (78%), and injury expertise on staff (58%). Most respondents (76%) thought ED personnel should play a major role in injury prevention. However, few respondents were satisfied with their injury prevention efforts (24%) or thought that their activities reached those most in need (22%).

Conclusions: Despite supporting ED-based injury prevention efforts, most EDs are not very engaged in effective injury prevention. Recommendations include increasing resources, emphasizing evidence-based injury prevention efforts, using local data to prioritize issues, using best practice models to address those issues and partnering with other organizations to maximize effectiveness of injury prevention.