A study of pattern of injuries and factors affecting the injury pattern among road traffic accident victims

Authors

  • Karmakonda Anil Kumar Department of Community Medicine, Dr. V.R.K. Women’s Medical College, Ranga Reddy, Telangana, India
  • Qurat Ul Ain Shadan Taj Department of Community Medicine, Dr. V.R.K. Women’s Medical College, Ranga Reddy, Telangana, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20201567

Keywords:

Road traffic accident, Simple injury, Grievous injury, Seat belt, Helmet

Abstract

Background: Road traffic injuries remain a critical public health concern. The most affected are the young population. Road accidents are one of the top three reasons for deaths among the population from the age group of 5 to 44 years, globally. Road traffic injuries can be prevented by a national plan or various strategies.

Methods: It is a hospital based study done on all road traffic accident cases admitted in Owaisi Hospital between April 2013 to July 2014 using a pretested, pre-designed questionnaire and collecting Medico legal case records. Data is expressed in percentages. Association between factors and severity of injuries was calculated using Chi-square test.

Results: Majority of the victims had suffered grievous injury (95.29%). Majority (62.48%) had injuries involving upper limb, 52% had injuries involving multiple body regions. Majority of the times it was a sideways collision 275 (48.00%), followed by head on collision 198 (34.55%). Factors such as use of the seat belt, alcohol consumption, lighting on the road are found to be statistically significant with the severity of the injuries.

Conclusions: Majority of the victims had suffered from multiple injuries (52%). The road traffic accidents can be prevented mainly putting emphasis on the use of seat belt, avoidance of consumption of alcohol by the drivers, adequate lighting on roads which can reduce the burden of occurrence of the road traffic accidents.

Author Biography

Karmakonda Anil Kumar, Department of Community Medicine, Dr. V.R.K. Women’s Medical College, Ranga Reddy, Telangana, India

Assistant Professor

Department of Community Medicine

References

WHO-Global status report 2013 /global-status-report-on-road-safety-2013. Available at: http://www.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/.../WHO_NMH_VIP_13.GLOBAL. Accessed on 3 June 2018.

Christopher JLM, Alan DL. Mortality by cause for eight regions of the world: Global Burden of disease study. Lancet. 1997;349(9061):1269-76.

Mohan D. Traffic Safety And Thirty Years Of Biomechanics, A Personal Adventure Research: Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Available at: http://www.iitd.ac.in/tripp/ publications/paper/DMircobi01.pdf. Accessed on 3 December 2019.

Sir Ratan Tata- Epidemiology of the road traffic accidents trust. Available at: www.youth forroadsafety.org/uploads/nieuws_bijlagen/rta_report). Accessed on 3 December 2019.

Aeron Thomas A, Jacobs GD, Sexton B, Gururaj G, Rahman F. The involvement and impact of road crashes on the poor: Bangladesh and India case studies. Transport Research Laboratory, PR/INT/275/2004. Available at: http://mrw. interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004607/pdf_fs.htmlnk. Accessed on 3 December 2019.

Epidemiology of road traffic accidents-Fitzerland et al 2006. Available at: www.youthforroad safety.org/uploads/nieuws_bijlagen/rta_report. Accessed on 3 December 2019.

World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. World Health Organisation, Geneva. 2004.

Barry PI, Brent EH. Injury Prevention: A Glossary of terms. Journal of Epidemiology community Health. 2005;59:182-5.

Zambia Patel SN. Traffic Fatalities in Lusaka, Zambia. Med Sci Law. 1979;19(1):61-5.

Gururaj G, Suryanarayan SP. Burden and impact of injuries: Results of population based survey. Proceeding of the 7th world conference on injury prevention and control. Vienna. 2004;275(6).

Pathak SM, Jindal AK, Verma AK, Mahen A. An epidemiological study of road traffic accident cases admitted in a tertiary care hospital. Med J Armed Forces India. 2014;70:32-5.

Pramod KV, Tewari KN. Epidemiology of Road Traffic injuries in Delhi: Result of a survey. Regional Health Forum Delhi WHO-SEAR. 2004;8(1):4-14.

Bagaria V, Bagaria S. A geographic information system to study trauma epidemiology in India. J Trauma Management Outcomes. 2007;1:1-3.

Singh H, Dhattarwal SK. Pattern and distribution of injuries in fatal road traffic accidents in Rohtak (Haryana). J Indian Acad Forensic Med. 2004;26(1):20-3.

Singh A, Bhardwaj A, Pathak R, Ahluwalia SK. An Epidemiological Study Of Road Traffic Accident Cases At A Tertiary Care Hospital In Rural Haryana. Indian J Community Health. 2011;23(2):53-5.

Motorcycle safety helmets. Cost. 327. Brussels, Commission of the European Communities, 2001.

Beyaztas FY, Alagozulu H. Evaluation of Traffic Accident Cases admitted in emergency department of the Cumburiyet University Hospital in 1988. Ulus Trauma Derg Turkish J Trauma Emergency Surgery. 2002;8(1):29-33.

Dandona R, Mishra A. Deaths due to road traffic crashes in Hyderabad City in India: Need for strengthening surveillance. National Med J India. 2004;17(2):74-9.

Verma PK, Tiwari KN. Epidemiology of road traffic injuries in Delhi: result of survey. J Community Health. 2011;23(2).

Jha N, Agarwal SC. Epidemiological study of road traffic accident cases: A study from Eastern Nepal. Regional Health Forum. 2004;8(1):15-28.

Downloads

Published

2020-04-24

How to Cite

Anil Kumar, K., & Shadan Taj, Q. U. A. (2020). A study of pattern of injuries and factors affecting the injury pattern among road traffic accident victims. International Journal Of Community Medicine And Public Health, 7(5), 1926–1931. https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20201567

Issue

Section

Original Research Articles