assessment of limb fractures in children below 12 years of age

background: in iran, trauma is the second cause of mortality after cardiovascular diseases. since children are known to belong to one of the high-risk age groups, the identification of the prevalent fractures in this age group could aid the identification of causes of fractures as well as damages observed in this group. methods: in this descriptive crosssectional study, a total of 5187 patients under 12 years of age, with definitive diagnosis of fractures referred to the taleghani hospital of kermanshah, were evaluated and the information was extracted from the patients records according to a researcher-built checklist, the validity of which was confirmed by 2 faculty members. the data was analyzed using spss v.16 software. results: the average age of patients was 6.4 ± 5.32 and their hospitalization duration was 1.2 ± 0.98 days. herein, 3579 patients (67% of the total number of patients) were male and a significant difference was observed between the 2 genders (p 0.001). furthermore, 3498 subjects (65.4%) had upper-limb fractures, 1662 subjects (31.2%) had lower-limb fractures, and 182 cases (3.4%) had nonlimbic fractures. the most common cause of fracture was falling from a height (77%). conclusions: the results demonstrate that a high percentage of fractures resulted from falling from a height, in males younger than 12 years old.