Association of psychological symptoms and unintentional injury among aged Chinese population

Objective: To investigate the association unintentional injury and psychological symptoms, an to provide some suggestions with regard to injury prevention and health promotion for the future. Methods: Aged people were selected, using randomized cluster sampling techniques, from retired people with more than 60 years of age in certain university, and all the 357 aged people were investigated using standardized injuries questionnaire. Psychological symptoms of the aged people were measured using SCL-90. The odd ratio (OR), estimated in logistic regression model, was used to assess the association of unintentional injury and risk factors among aged people. Results: The overall injury rate was 21.6% among aged people. Psychological symptoms of the aged people were associated with unintentional injury. The aged people with injury had a higher raw mean score for the psychological symptoms of the psychological symptoms of somatization, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and psychoticism than those of non-injured. The person with raw mean score ≥2.0 for the subscale of symptoms obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal-sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and global factor had a higher injury rate. After controlling for the age, gender, education, and occupation in logistic regression model, the psychological symptoms of obsessive- compulsiveness (OR = 1.85, 95%CI: 1.07-3.22), interpersonal-sensitivity (OR = 2.03, 95% CI: 1.16-3.54), depression (OR = 2.06, 95%CI: 1.15-3.67) and global scale (OR = 1.73, 95%CI: 1.00-3.23) were associated with elevated injury risk. Conclusion: The psychological symptoms of obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal-sensitivity and depression were associated with significantly elevated risk of injury among aged people in our study. The nursing service in the community, and providing some suggestion of releasing the psychological burdens, such as psychological counseling for aged people, might help reduce the risk of injury among aged people.