Irtiqa Imini Pishgiri Masdumiyat (Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention)

Abstract

Background and Aim: Injuries from traffic accidents are a major public health problem, and the third leading cause of mortality in people aged 1 to 40 years. Each year 31.8 persons per hundred thousands of Iranians are killed in car accidents. Neighboring of North Khorasan province with Razavi Khorasan, a province with a lot of pilgrims caused a large number of passengers travel via North Khorasan province. This study aimed to evaluate the road accidents and its related factors in the city of bojnurd in March 2012. 

Materials and Methods: this cross-sectional study was done from … to … 2012(the New Year vacation in Iran). All injured or victims from car accidents who referred to the emergency department of the Imam Ali Hospital formed the research community. Data was gathered by a questionnaire consisting vehicle specification, driver and injured characteristics. For victims and those were not able to answer, we used the family members or relatives for gathering the data. All data analysis was done in SPSS version 19.

Results: during the study period, 148 injured people were admitted to the hospital. Drivers’ mean age were 33.9 with the SD of 11.9 years; among them 43.2% were used seat belt. One driver and three passengers were killed immediately, and two drivers and three passengers died in the first 24 hours of admission. Fastening seat belt by drivers reduce the hospitalization rate significantly (p-value<0.0001). 50.7% of the accidents were head-on collisions. Violation from the speed limit (41.3%), indiscretions (25.4%) and drowsiness were the most common causes of accident respectively.

Conclusion: training the drivers, obligation for using seat belt by driver and passengers, rest after long hours driving , and more control of traffic police especially in two way roads could reduce the car accident or in case of accident help to prevent severe damage and injury.