Sociodemographic profile of road traffic accident victims in Vijayapura, North Karnataka: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Road traffic accidents (RTA) are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as injuries resulting from collisions on public roads, whether they are fatal or not. At least one moving vehicle must be involved in these occurrences. RTA is defined as any collision involving at least one moving vehicle that occurs on a roadway or throughfare that is open to public traffic and results in death or serious injury of one or more people. WHO estimates that the economic cost of traffic accidents is usually around 3% of a nations GDP. Every year, traffic accidents claim the lives of almost 1.19 million individuals. Methods: After obtaining Institutional ethical committee clearance, patients admitted with RTAs in BLDE hospital were interviewed using a semi structured, pre tested questionnaire to assess their epidemiological profile; informed consent was obtained from the study participants. The acquired data was entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and statistical analyses with SPSS. Results: Out of the 206 participants, the majority of the participants were in the 18 to 30 age group, which accounted for 73 people (35%). Majority of the victims were males (89.8%) and remaining (10.2%) were females. Majority of the study participants had their residence in rural areas accounting for (88.3%) and the rest (11.7%) residing in urban areas of Vijayapura. Conclusions: Sociodemographic data helps us to take preventive measures in relation to RTAs.