Survey on Bathing Accidents in a City of Okayama Prefecture from Fire Department Reports for the Past Five Years

Abstract

　This study examined risk factors of bathing accidents that occurred in a city of Okayama Prefecture in full cooperation with the local fire department. Between 2005 and 2009, 52 deaths and 165 survivors were reported by the fire department due to bathing accidents. This study examined the current status and risk factors of bathing accidents employing incident reports made by the fire department, and the following were clarified : 1) the number of victims who survived was approximately three times higher than that of those who died, 2) a 14-year age difference was observed between death and survival cases (p<0.05), 3) most accidents occurred at home between 18 : 00 and 22 : 00 during winter, and 89% of victims lived with their family,4) among survivors, the accidents tend to occur in all seasons except summer, 5) 63.5% of the victims who died were diagnosed with cardiopulmonary arrest of unknown cause, 6) the most common symptoms observed in survivors were loss of consciousness in the bathtub, followed by discomfort and impaired consciousness, 7) 34.6% of them were diagnosed with cerebrovascular disease, suggesting that high blood pressure may be related, and 8) outside the bathtub, slip-induced falls among the elderly and injuries among children were frequently observed.
　Thus, quite a few bathing accidents are considered to have been occurring as a result of a complex combination of causal factors. Although this study could not examine cases handled by police due to ethical reasons, all incidents need to be analyzed to explore safe bathing methods in Japan.