Young, Impulsive Motorcyclists Most At Risk For Accidents and Injuries

Professor Ajai Singh Department of Orthopaedic Surgery King George's Medical University India

Prof. Ajai Singh

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Professor Ajai Singh

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
King George’s Medical University
India 

Medical Research: What is the background for this study?

Prof. Singh: Road traffic accidents (RTAs), in the current scenario, have taken the form of an epidemic. Developing countries are presently showing an increasing trend with respect to the number of vehicles and population. Personality characteristics are becoming a significant contributor in RTAs, owing to rising stress levels and varying circumstances. In developing countries, most of the RTAs occur in urban regions and pedestrians, passengers, and motorcyclists collectively constitute around 90% of deaths. We, therefore, conducted this study in order to evaluate the patterns of various personality characteristics in patients suffering from nonfatal orthopedic injuries as a result of Road traffic accidents and attending a tertiary care center, with special focus on motorcyclists.

Medical Research: What are the main findings?

Prof. Singh: Most of the accidental injuries are faced by motorized two wheeler drivers of younger age. This is probably due to the fact that we are a developing nation with a huge population having motorized two wheeler vehicles as a major means of private transport. Also, these motorized two wheelers have a low safety profile that makes their riders more prone to accident. Amongst all the motorcyclists encountering road traffic accidents, impulsive personality trait is found in 85.19% and histrionic trait was found in 82.72% of cases.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Key message to clinicians:

In India, most of the patients reached the hospital even after six hours of accident. It shows the necessity of centers equipped in delivering basic essential trauma care to the patients. So there is need to reorient the trauma management.

Key message to patients:

  1. As the severity of injury directly correlates with the velocity of trauma, they should drive slowly.
  2. Should use the safety equipment to maximum level.
  3. After trauma, should reach the nearest hospital as soon as possible.

Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Prof. Singh: Conclusive strength of our study is limited by its small sample size. Multicentric studies with larger sample size are further needed to gather strong support and valid justification

in favor of the above evidences generated in our present study. We would definitely like to stress upon the fact that the causation of Road traffic accidents is multifactorial, and in this study, we have focused only on one aspect (personality trait) of it, which might be one of the possible associations and should not definitely be attributed as a sole cause for it.

Citation:

Analysis of personality traits in patients of road traffic accident (RTA) with special reference to motorcycle riders

Goyal, Rahul et al.

Clinical Epidemiology and Global Health

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cegh.2015.10.010

 

Professor Ajai Singh (2015). Young, Impulsive Motorcyclists Most At Risk For Accidents and Injuries MedicalResearch.com

Last Updated on December 6, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

Tags: