Evaluation of morbidity and epidemiology of two wheelers accidents in central India

Abstract

Background: In the developing world, the current trends in population growth, industrialization and urbanization are putting heavy pressure on the transport network in general and on road system in particular. Some of the unwanted side effects of this growing traffic, such as congestion and noise pollution are immediately obvious to the individual. But others, such as the growing number of fatal and non-fatal injuries from Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs), are apparent only through aggregated statistics. These data reflects serious and growing problem, with absolute fatality and casualty figures are rapidly rising in the majority of developing nations and with morbidity and mortality rates considerably higher than in the developed world. The alarming increase in morbidity and mortality owing to road traffic accidents over the past decades is a matter of great concern globally. In this study we have done evaluation of morbidity and epidemiology of two wheelers (two wheeler vehicles are those vehicle which runs on fuel e.g. Motorcycle) accidents in Central India.
Methods: There were about 1514 patients who came to Accident and Emergency department of Acharya Vinobha Bhave Hospital from September 2014 to August 2015 with history of RTA, out of which 100 cases of road traffic accidents involving two wheelers were interviewed, using interview technique as tool for data collection.
Results: Out of 100 cases of road traffic accidents involving two wheelers 84 were male and 16 were female patients. Among 100 patients 46% had trauma by skidding of bike. Accidents took place at early morning (17%), afternoon (37%) and evening (31%) and night (15%) time. A number of patients (41%) were under influence of alcohol making it a major reason of trauma. Seventy five percent of the patients were driving the vehicle. In 25% of cases, patients were the pillion riders. In our study out of 100 patients, 99 were not wearing a helmet except for 1 patient. Among 100 patients, 54 were having orthopaedic injuries. Among the orthopaedic injuries, lower limb injuries were 46% and upper limb were 45%.
Conclusions: In our study we concluded that most of the accidents on two wheelers were of younger adults with predominance of male population and mostly occurred at daytime. Most of the drivers were under the influence of alcohol and were prone to accidents. The problems with two – wheelers accidents were condition of road, alcohol influence, and condition of vehicle.

Keywords: Road Traffic Accidents, Two – wheelers, Central India, Morbidity,  Epidemiology