560K kids treated for furniture, TV tip-over injuries during 30-year span

From 1990 to 2019, an estimated 560,203 children were treated in United States EDs for injuries that were sustained when a piece of furniture or TV tipped over on them, a retrospective data analysis showed. Among them, 575 had died.

More than 11,521 children were treated for furniture or TV tip-over injuries in 2019 alone, equaling one child every 46 minutes that year, researchers wrote in Injury Epidemiology.

Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, founder and director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and colleagues conducted the study in light of recent changes in voluntary safety standards for clothing storage units (CSUs) such as dressers and wardrobes, an increased number of cathode ray tube TVs being replaced by flat-screen TVs and drops in household TV ownership.

Gary Smith

Smith and colleagues reviewed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System to identify injuries among children aged 18 years and younger that were caused by CSUs and TVs. This database, run by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), obtains reports from 100 hospitals. The data represent a probability sample of 5,300-plus hospitals with a 24-hour ED and at least six beds within the U.S. and its territories.

“Trends in population-based rates were evaluated with regression techniques. All numbers of cases are expressed as national estimates,” Smith and colleagues wrote.

During the 30-year span, the rate of CSU and TV tip-over injuries for every 100,000 members of the U.S. population aged 18 years and younger rose 53.8% from 1990 to 2010, then dropped 56.8% from 2010 to 2019. A little more than 56% of these injuries were in boys. Most injuries occurred in children aged 6 years and younger (69.9%), followed by those aged 6 to 12 years (22.6%) and 13 to 17 years (7.5%).

Most of the non-fatal injuries were to the head or neck area (47%), followed by lower extremity (31.7%) and upper extremity areas (15.5%). The rate of concussion or closed head injury per 100,000 skyrocketed 575% from 1990 to 2010, then dropped by 72.8% from 2010 to 2019.

“Furniture and TV tip-overs are an important source of injury, especially for children younger than 6 years old,” Smith told Healio Primary Care.

Smith and colleagues wrote that a previous CPSC study that sampled 61 CSUs found 51% “did not comply with stability requirements and 30% did not include a tip-restraint device with their product as required by the safety standard.”

In a press release, Smith and colleagues encouraged Senate approval of the Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth, or STURDY, Act.

“Consumers cannot determine the stability of a CSU by looking at it,” the researchers wrote.

According to Congress.gov, the STURDY Act would require the CPSC to “revise the safety standards for freestanding clothing storage units such as dressers, bureaus or chests of drawers ... [to] include specified testing related to tip overs and new warning requirements for all such products entering the U.S. market.” The STURDY Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019 and awaits action by the Senate.

Smith encouraged pediatricians to “offer anticipatory guidance on furniture and TV tip-overs at well visits.”

This can include securing furniture to walls, using furniture stands that are specific to the item and not putting items such as remote controls and toys on top of TVs or CSUs, he said.

References:

Congress.gov. STURDY Act. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2211.Accessed Aug. 27, 2021.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Every 46 minutes a child is treated in a U.S. emergency department for an injury from a furniture or TV tip-over. https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/newsroom/news-releases/2021/08/cirp_furnituretipovermmr. Accessed Aug. 26, 2021.

Lu C, et al. Inj Epidemiol. 2021;doi:10.1186/s40621-021-00346-6.