[Injuries in the Schoolyard: An Analysis of Individual and Contextual Factors]

Injuries of children and adolescents rank among the most immediate problems in public health in Germany. Alongside accidents in the household and during leisure time, the school is of great importance. However, there are significant gaps in knowledge about the causes of school injuries. This is the starting point of this article, which analyses individual and contextual factors that influence the occurrence of injuries in schools and deals explicitly with injuries happening in the schoolyard.

The data foundation is the second wave of the panel study "Gesundheitsverhalten und Unfallgeschehen im Schulalter" (Health Behavior and Occurrence of Accidents at School Age) (GUS). Following a random sampling of secondary general education schools in 11 German states, 10089 pupils aged 11-13 years from 138 schools were surveyed within their respective classes via a standardized electronic questionnaire. Alongside accidents and injuries, the questionnaire covers a wide range of topics including health and recreational behavior and also surveys information about the schools. The factors influencing schoolyard accidents are analyzed using multivariate, logistic multilevel-models.

In the second wave, 5.8% of the pupils reported at least one injury happening in the schoolyard in the last 12 months that had to be treated by a doctor. Correlations with these schoolyard accidents were found for individual factors such as gender (female, OR=0.53), experiences of bullying (OR=1.68), sleeping problems (OR=1.07) and individual athletic activity (OR=1.03). Although the variance is primarily tied to the individual level, certain contextual variables also proved influential: Schools, in which the overall condition is rated better by the pupils, also have a lower overall risk of injuries (OR=0.60).

According to these results, preventive measures may target the individual as well as the contextual level: prevention of bullying should be a focus in the light of these findings, but at the same time, also the condition of the schools should be taken into consideration.