Risk Factors and Pattern of Injuries in Motorcycle Accidents in Holy Karbala

Waleed, Mustafa; Mahdi.Abdul-Sahib,; I. Al-Ghabban, Saad

	Risk Factors and Pattern of Injuries in Motorcycle Accidents in Holy Karbala
Kerbala Journal of Medicine
Article 1, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 1552-1560 PDF (0 K)
Authors
Mustafa Waleed; ; Saad I. Al-Ghabban
Abstract
Background: Worldwide, the morbidity and mortality among motorcyclists involved in road traffic accidents is high. In Iraq, since 2003, there have been an increasing number of motorcycles in the streets; this phenomenon was particularly noticed in the Province of Holy Karbala. Objective: To shed light on the risk factors and pattern of injuries in motorcycle accidents in Holy Karbala. Design: Hospital-based cross-sectional, study. Setting: Al-Husain teaching hospital in Holy Karbala in Iraq, from 7th November 2010 to 17th February 2011. Patients and Methods: This study involved all injured motorcyclists involved in road traffic accidents who were admitted to the emergency department and their mortalities which were referred to the medico-legal department (N=456). The information collected included personal identification data, the person’s position on the motorcycle during the event, in addition, the type and site of injury and the outcome of the victims were reported. Results: The mean age (± standard deviation) of the subjects was (24 ± 10.12 years); More than one quarter (25.7%) of the injured motorcyclists (26.1% of drivers and 22.7% of pillion passengers) were within 15-19 years of age. Most of the drivers (61.7%) had low level of education; 53.9% were smokers, 2.9% were alcoholics and 32.7% had history of previous accidents of whom 35 (11.5% of them) had more than one accident. The lower limb was the commonest site of injury (61.8% of patients); the upper limb and the head were the second and third leading site of injury (26.1 % and 23.7% respectively). About half of the patients (49.8%) complained of fractures. More than quarter of the cases (25.6%) needed admission to the wards or the intensive care unit. The case fatality rate was found to be 5%. Conclusions: Teenagers motorcycle drivers are the most commonly affected category in motorcycle accidents. Lower limb injuries represent the commonest site and fractures represent the commonest form of injury among motorcyclists involved in road traffic accidents. A considerable proportion of cases need inpatient medical care. Head injuries were the predominant cause of deaths
Keywords
Risk Factors; injury pattern; motorcycle accidents; road traffic accidents; Holy Karbala

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