Clinical Profile of Road Traffic Accidents in a Tertiary Care Hospital in India

Abstract

In India, approximately 28% of the total disability-adjusted life years lost due to injuries are attributed to road traffic injuries (RTIs) alone. In 2016, there were 150,785 deaths occurring in 480,652 road crashes. The aim is to assess the various epidemiological factors of road traffic accidents at a tertiary care hospital.It is a prospective observational study involving 1000 cases conducted in Department of Orthopaedics, Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Saveetha University, Chennai, India between 2021 – 2023 using questionnaire and specific parameters.The mean age of patients included in our study was 37.02±15.65. Out of the 1000 patients, 25.7% were between 31 -40 years of age and 83. 4% were males with skid and fall from 2 wheeler being the most commonest mechanism of injury. Thiruvallur (42.9%) was the most commonest district with time of injury being between 8pm-1:59am (40.1%).The most common site involved in RTA was found to be Lower limbs (54.9%) followed by upper limb (44.1%).The mean ISS was 38 ± 7. The mortality rate was 1.7%. There is a need of more scientific studies on the subject and road users need to be educated on factors involved in the road accidents. Implementation of various safety measures in a multipronged strategy is the need of hour.