Tobacco Consumption Habits and Road Traffic Accidents: A Study among Heavy Vehicle Drivers in Bangladesh

Abstract

The Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) is a significant life hazard and threat to life worldwide, which is severe in Bangladesh. Nowadays the RTAs have become an epidemic and there are found growing tobacco consumption habits among the bus-truck drivers in Bangladesh. The study aims to identify the connection between tobacco consumption and heavy vehicle accidents in Dhaka city in Bangladesh. Drivers participated in this cross-sectional study with 424 in–person interviews and 10 key informants’ interviews. Differences between different parameters (related to tobacco consumption and driving) were assessed with Chi-squared tests while logistic regression models were used to identify the association of RTA and socio-demographic characteristics. The study result shows 41.7% respondents' driving experience was found as ≤10 year’s where average (±SD) 13.8 (±8.7) years. About 75.9% respondents were tobacco users and among them 94.9% smoke Cigarettes where 77.5% were smoke daily. About 64.6% respondents were involved in RTAs. A statistically significant association was found between RTAs and smoking during driving (OR=2.087, p=0.003), having driving licenses of the drivers (p<0.034) where with the sickness of the drivers (p<0.004). This finding showed drivers are very prone to consume tobacco during driving and no driving license, driving hours, sickness, personal income and education of drivers greatly affects the RTAs.