Psychosomatic disorders and traffic accidents

Abstract

The present paper has been concerned with the relationship between accident proneness and psychosomatic disorders. On the basis of Dunbar's suggestions it was hypothesized that psychosomatic patients would be more likely to be involved in accidents than would persons in the general population. In order to determine the empirical warrant for this expectation it was decided to obtain the motor vehicle accident rates for a large group of peptic ulcer patients. A group of 271 male hospital patients, whose unchallenged diagnosis was stomach or duodenal ulcer, comprised the population studied. It was found (1) that 135 of these patients had a driver's licenceduring the three and one-half years studied, and (2) that the latter did not differ significantly from the population of ulcer patients in their social characteristics, nor did they differ in any important respect from the male population of Ontario. Age-adjusted accident rates were obtained for the peptic ulcer patients and these were compared with rates for the Ontario-male-driving population. It was found that the ulcer patients had significantly more accidents per capita than did the general driving population. The results of this investigation, then, provide some support for Dunbar's theory. It was noted, however, that only one psychomatic disorder has been studied and also that the sample studied might contain sub-samples (such as alcoholics) which are also at high risk. This study lends further support to the view that there are high risk groups in the general driving population.