Motorcycle related injuries in Thai Children and Adolescent during the period of June 1-July 31, 2014

Abstract

Injuries and deaths related to motorcycles are one of the major public health problems in Thailand. In 2013, reports from the injury surveillance system in the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health showed that 46.52%of injuries were caused by road traffic accidents. Of which, 51.22% were young people and 86.62% of them involved with motorcycle during the accident. In addition, 943 out of total 1,269 deaths were due to motorcycle-related road traffic accidents. Thus, the Bureau of Epidemiology conducted a descriptive study, aiming to determine the factors associated with injuries and deaths among young motorcyclists in Thailand, and provide prevention and control measures efficiently. The study population included the injured motorcycle riders and their passengers who were aged up to 25 years and admitted in the emergency room of nine sentinel sites under injury surveillance within seven days after the accident during June 1 - July 31, 2014. Data were collected by interview and analyzed by Epi Info version 3.2. Among total 3,208 injured cases, 33 died and case fatality rate was 1.03%. There were 27 fatalities out of 2,348 drivers and case fatality rate was 1.15%. The youngest motorcyclist was 9 years old, with the range of 15-25 years. Risk behavior of the injured cases included driving without a valid motorcycle license (87.95%), motorcycles available from their parents or relatives (59.65%), medium engine (100-150 cc) of motorcycles (50.64%), modification of motorcycle machine used for 11-25 years (94.54%), twolane road accident (74.42%), having parties with the driver aged 16 years (50.55%), drinking alcohol (16.57%), driver not wearing helmet (75.35%) and passenger not wearing the helmet (91.06%). The drivers who were not wearing helmet had head injuries (84.34%) and severe injuries (12.05%) with Glasgow Coma Score less than 8. However, only 15.66% of the riders with helmet had head injuries and 2.27% had severe injuries with Glasgow Coma Score less than 8. This information can be useful to propose a plan for prevention and control of motorcycle-related accidents among children and adolescent in Thailand.