Abstract:
Background: Road traffic injury is a major global public health problem that causes about 1.3 million people die and 20-50 million people injured each year on the world’s roads. This study aimed to identify factors contributed for road traffic injury fatality and develop targeted interventions and preventive measures to improve road safety among road users.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine trend and fatality of road traffic injury and associated factors of patients admitted to emergency departments of St. Luke hospital, South West Shewa Zone, Central Ethiopia, 2019.
Methods: An institution based cross sectional study was conducted from July 10 to 30, 2019 in St. Luke hospital, South West Shewa, Central Ethiopia. We conducted trend of road traffic injury monthly bases. A total of 364 road traffic injured victims participated in the study. The study subjects were selected by using simple random sampling technique of secondary data and included to the study until the sample size obtained. A structured data abstraction format was used to gather the required data. We conducted binary logistic regression and multivariate logistic regression to determine the association between outcome and explanatory variables. Adjusted odds ratios and 95%confidence intervals were used to report independent variables associated with fatality of road traffic injury.
Results: A total of 364 road traffic injury victims admitted to emergency department of St.Luke hospital were included in the study. Trend of road traffic injury fatality vary from month to months which showed that 15.6% of fatality occurred in November, 2018. The average annual road traffic injury fatality was 8.34% death/month. We conducted magnitude of road traffic injury fatality 8.79%. Of all victims visited the hospital 75.5% was male. The median age of the victims was 26 which ranged from 6 to 70. 51.6% of victims were age between 15-29 years. The identified risk factors for road traffic injury fatality were lack of ambulance for transportation to hospital after accident (AOR=7.093, 95%CI 1.950-25.793 P=0.003) and head injury (AOR=2.515 95%CI 1.075-5.885, P=0.034).
Conclusion: Road traffic injury fatality is an important public health problem which needs special attention. The factors contributing for fatality of road traffic injury were shortage of ambulance service for transportation and injury site related to head injury. So, it is important to establish and strengthen advanced pre-hospital care and an effective ambulance system for transportation of victims of road traffic injury.
