History of injury in a developing country: a scoping review of injury literature in Lebanon

Background Lebanon, an Eastern Mediterranean country, suffers a large burden of injury as a consequence of conflict and war, political instability, and the lack of policies and safety regulations. This article aims to systematically map and comprehensively describe the injury research literature in Lebanon and, to identify gaps for future research. Methods MEDLINE, Embase, Eric and SafetyLit, and the grey literature, including conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, government and media reports, were searched without any date or language limits. Data were extracted from 467 documents using REDCap. Results War-related injuries were the most prevalent type of injury in Lebanon, followed by homicide and other forms of violence. While existing literature targeted vulnerable and at-risk populations, the vast majority focused solely on reporting the prevalence of injuries and associated risk factors. There are considerable gaps in the literature dealing with the integration of preventive programs and interventions across all populations. Conclusions Lebanon, historically and currently, experiences a high number of injuries from many different external causes. To date, efforts have focused on reporting the prevalence of injuries and making recommendations, rather than implementing and evaluating interventions and programs to inform policies. Future injury related work should prioritize interventions and prevention programs.