Epidemiologic and injury characteristics of 1 328 road traffic injuries in Shenzhen / 中华创伤杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze epidemiologie and injury characteristics of traffic injuries in Shenzhen through emergency department. Methods A questionnaire was pre-designed to collect data of patients admitted to six general emergency departments of six district in Shenzhen from January 2007 to December 2007 for clinical analysis. Results There were 1 328 patients with road traffic injuries, at age range of 2-84 years (average 31 years). According to occupation, most patients were local workers and migrant workers (57.8%). The accidental vehicles were mostly cars (48.5%). Most accidents (78.6%) occurred in urban streets. As for time distribution of traffic injuries, most injuries happened on Friday and Saturday (accounting for 17.8% and 18.7% respectively), especially on Friday (r = 0.166 0, P <0.01). There was central tendency around 1535 p.m. in one day (r = 0.285 6, P < 0.01). The age of male was (32.36±8.70) years and that of female (29.96±4.32) years, with statis-tical differences (P < 0.05). Of patients followed up, 84.4% patients could work on their original jobs, 8.5% needed ehange of their jobs and 7.1% lost the ability of work. Conclusions It is neeessary to strengthen road safety education among local workers and migrant workers to improve their awareness of road safety. Traffic administrators and road safety marks should be added in the chief period and districts where road traffic injuries happen most frequently. Controlling the number of small cars may be effective to reduce traffic accidents.