Comparison of road traffic accidents presenting to the emergency department of a teaching hospital before and during lockdown

Abstract

Background: Road traffic accidents (RTAs) are a major cause of misery, disability and death globally, with a disproportionate number occurring in developing countries. With COVID-19 reaching pandemic proportion, a nationwide lockdown was announced on 24 March 2020 which resulted in the complete closure vehicular movement. This study aimed to assess the impact of lockdown on the number of RTAs brought to our rural tertiary care teaching hospital situated on National highway number 65.Methods: Medico-legal records were reviewed retrospectively at Kamineni institute of medical sciences hospital. The cases were classified into two groups. The pre-lockdown group included cases reporting to casualty from 1 April 2019 to 31 July 2019. The lockdown group included cases reporting to casualty from 1 April 2020 to 31 July 2020. Patient demographics, type of injury, time of injury, mode of injury were collected for all cases and analysed using simple mathematical tools.Results: There was a significant decrease in the total number of RTAs during lockdown phases 1 and 2 and during unlocking phases 1 and 2 by 52.1%. Bike skid was the most common mode of injury. The highest number of RTAs was observed between 6 am to 6 pm and the most commonly affected gender was male especially in the age group of 15-45 years.Conclusions: RTA numbers can be reduced by strict implementation of traffic rules and better road infrastructure. One positive effect of the measures implemented to control the spread of COVID-19 was the reduction of traffic accidents and mass casualties.