Road traffic accidents, the leading cause of death: A retrospective study

Abstract

Road traffic accidents (RTAs) has spiked over the past few years and has become a major public health concern in Bangladesh. Globally, RTA causes 1.35 million deaths annually. The consequences of road traffic accident not only affect the victim’s physical, psychological and financial hardship, but also has fatal impact on the functioning of the whole family. The objective of this study was to evaluate the present situation of RTA in Dhaka city, to find out the pattern of injuries, to identify the causes, frequency, socio- demographic characteristics of the victims and to identify the measures to minimize the incidence of RTAs. This retrospective study was conducted in the department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology of Dhaka Medical College during January 2019 to December 2019. A total of 154 medico-legal cases of road traffic accidents were brought to the mortuary of Dhaka Medical College from 23 police stations and 1 railway Thana. Data was collected from inquest report, Challan and postmortem reports from the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Dhaka Medical College. This study shows that a total of 154 post mortems of RTA cases were conducted at DMC morgue during January 2019 to December 2019. Greater number of the accidents occurred during June 28 (18.18%) and August 25 (16.23%). Among the victims, 114 (74.03%) were male and 40 (25.97%)were female. Most of fatality was among the age group 22 to 27 years (48, 31.17%) followed by 28 to 33 years age group (32, 20.78%). By relidion, Muslims were 130 (84.41%), followed by Hindus (19, 12.34 %), and Christians (05, 3.25 %). Considering the injury patterns, all victims had multiple abrasion and bruise 154 (100%), fracture ribs 28 (18.18%), fracture hipbones 26(16.88 %), fracture skull bones 17 (11.04%), head injury 24 (15.58%) and intracranial haemorrhages 24 (15.58%). Road traffic accidents can be minimized by creating public awareness among all road users about traffic signals and traffic safety rules as far as private users of vehicles are concerned.