The Article in Brief

State Anger and the Risk of Injury: a Case-control and Case-crossover Study

Daniel C. Vinson, MD, MSPH , and colleagues

Background Is anger associated with injury? This study looked at the risk of injury during specific episodes of anger (called “state anger”).

What This Study Found Anger greatly increases a person’s chances of injury, especially among men, according to this study of more than 2,500 patients. Based on interviews of patients who had been seriously injured and were seeking care at an emergency department, researchers found that 31.7% reported some degree of irritability just before the injury, 18.1% reported feeling angry, and 13.2% reported feeling hostile. The relationship between anger and injury is stronger in men than women. In addition, risk of injury is higher for greater degrees of anger. For example, the risk is higher for those feeling “quite a bit” or “extremely” angry rather than just “angry.” Anger is much less common among patients with traffic injuries, but in both men and women anger is strongly associated with intentional injuries inflicted by another person.

Implications

• Control of irritability and anger might decrease the risk of injury, especially among men.