Pattern of injuries in road traffic accident in northern Indian population

Abstract

Road Traffic Accident (RTA) is a current global development epidemic. The World Health Organization (WHO 2010: 5) estimates that road traffic crashes cause over 1.24 million deaths and about 50 million people are injured per year. In India, the problem of road traffic accidents has been a public health issue. The present study aims to study the clinical profile of road traffic accident victims with orthopedic injuries admitted in a hospital of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The present cross-sectional study has been carried out at Orthopedics OPD and Emergency at Era's Medical College, Lucknow. Sample size was calculated prior and was 262. The data were collected from Sep 2014 to June 2015. The findings were presented in tabular form to assess the socioeconomic variables, types of orthopedic injuries and most reasons of accidents. It is found that 69% victims were in age group of 20-40 years. Out of 262 patients 69% were male while 31% were female. Nearly 35% were undergraduate students. In 30% patients, tibia was fractured while in nearly 18% patients, two bones were fractured in combination of tibia+pelvis/femur/fibula/skull/ribs/humerus/radius/ulna. The distribution of patients according to bone fracture patterns was same among three bone fractures. The percentage of patients having four bone fracture (tibia+pelvis+humerus+ulna) was found to be 1%. In the present study, 39% accident victims reported that they got accident due to high speed of vehicle, 27% reported that accident occurred due to poor traffic systems, 31% reported that it happened due to poor road while 4% presented the reason of accident due to other reasons. The present study aims to know the common pattern of orthopedic injuries after road traffic accidents. The middle-age people are victims of traffic road accidents who get various types of typical orthopedic injuries. Still, the high speed and poor traffic systems are twin problems of road accidents.