(A151) The Situation of Reporting Road Traffic Accidents Resulting In Injury and Death in a Suburban Roadway: A Cohort Study

Abstract

Introduction

The prerequisite of improving the situation of traffic accidents and injury prevention is to set up a “Road Traffic Accident and Victim Information System (RTAVIS)” which does not exist in Iran. The objective of this study was to compare the three major sources information including police, emergency medical service and hospitals to show the necessity of integrated road traffic injury surveillance system.

Method

This prospective cohort study has been done by pursuing each road traffic accident (RTA) case within 30 days of its occurrence by a draft questionnaire and data pooling from participating sources during one year.

Results

In this study, after aggregating/ pooling the data from all organizations, it was finally revealed that during one year 254 injury crashes happened in Tehran–Abali road (with 45 Kilometer distance) in which 434 people were injured or died. Out of these injury crashes, Police and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) stated to be unaware of 67 and 51 cases, respectively. In other words, Police, pre- hospital emergency service and hospital have reported 56.2% 82.9% and 76.4% of the entire number of injuries or deaths respectively.

Conclusion

None of the information sources including police, EMS and health care facilities has complete information about injuries and deaths caused by traffic accidents. It seems that formulating and implementing a centralized and multidisciplinary data collection system of national traffic accidents with the collaboration of police, Ministry of health and medical education (EMS and medical centers), forensic medicine, and Iranian Red Crescent is necessary.