Sport- or leisure-related injury hospital admissions: do we need to get more out of being struck?

The usefulness of New South Wales (NSW) hospitalisation data for the identification of prevention measures for sport- or leisure-related injury hospitalisations for one common injury mechanism, struck by/struck against injuries, is illustrated. Sport- or leisure-related hospitalisations were identified during 1999-2000 to 2003-2004 from the NSW hospitalisation data using activity and place of occurrence information. Struck by/struck against injury hospitalisations were identified using the International Classification of Disease, 10th Revision, Australian Modified (ICD-10-AM) codes W20-W23 and W50-W52. Information regarding the number of hospitalisations for basic demographic descriptors (such as age and sex), the type of injury experienced, the injury mechanism, the activity, and the place of occurrence of the injury event are available from NSW hospitalisation data. Additional information than what is currently available would be required for the identification of targeted injury prevention strategies for sport- or leisure-related struck by/struck against injuries leading to hospitalisation. Assessing the feasibility of collecting information regarding the object or agent of injury, the phase of activity at the time of the injury, the collection of narrative text and the date of injury are all recommended. These recommendations have national and international implications as ICD-10 is widely used to classify hospitalised morbidity data.