Abstract
To investigate the major injury patterns associated with traffic accidents and evaluate the risk factors of the main injury, a survey of Taiwan's national insurance admission data between 2002 and 2011 was performed. The incidence of traffic-accidents-related hospitalization was between 9.17% and 11.54% and the average mortality rate of the inpatients admitted due to traffic accidents was 0.68%. Of all inpatients due to road traffic accidents in Taiwan, orthopedic fractures were the most common injuries that accounted for 29.36% of them. There were a total of 391,197 cases of three orthopedic fracture groups that were divided into (1) fracture of upper limb, (2) fracture of lower limb, and (3) fracture of spine and trunk. An increase in national medical cost used for inpatients with orthopedic fractures was noted and ranged from US$ 45.6 million to US$ 86 million annually. These orthopedic fracture patterns were frequently associated with other injuries especially head injuries (ranged from 14% to 26%). A significant relation to male gender, older age, low income, and admission to high-level hospital to the observed fracture patterns was observed.
Highlights
Road traffic injures (RTIs) are responsible for a substantial proportion of deaths and injuries and are responsible for more years of life lost than most human diseases
Motorcycle helmets were found to reduce the risk of head injury and from five well-conducted studies the risk reduction is estimated to be 72% (odds ratio (OR): 0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.23–0.35) there was some evidence that the effect of helmets on mortality is modified by speed [4]
The patient data analyzed in this research were obtained from the National health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), which is maintained by the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) and the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) for research purpose
Summary
Road traffic injures (RTIs) are responsible for a substantial proportion of deaths and injuries and are responsible for more years of life lost than most human diseases. The numbers of lives lost in road crushes in high-income countries indicate a downward trend in recent decades, for most of the world’s population, the burden of road-traffic injury in terms of societal and economic costs is rising substantially [2]. The distribution of road traffic deaths by road user group varies dramatically across epidemiological WHO subregions and varies across low-income, middle-income, and highincome countries. 45% of road traffic fatalities in low-income countries are among pedestrians, whereas an estimated 29% in middle-income and 18% in high-income countries are among pedestrians [3]. Global efforts to reduce road traffic injuries may be facilitated. Motorcycle helmets were found to reduce the risk of head injury and from five well-conducted studies the risk reduction is estimated to be 72% (odds ratio (OR): 0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.23–0.35) there was some evidence that the effect of helmets on mortality is modified by speed [4]
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