Traffic Accident Prevention Measures and the Reduction of Patients from Traffic Injuries: A Case Study of Khon Kaen Regional Hospital

Abstract

Khon Kaen regional hospital in collaboration with relevant provincial partners has implemented traffic accident prevention programmes through public campaigns encouraging helmet wearing and against drunk driving in Mueang district, Khon Kaen province, since 2007. This evaluation re-search, therefore, was aimed at assessing the outcome of the prevention programmes in reducing traffic injury patients with alcohol drinking, and determining an association between patients' health status after treatment with helmet wearing and drunk driving. The study employed secondary data from injury surveillance (IS) database in Khon Kaen regional hospital between 2001 and 2011, a total of 91,700 injury records. Data were analysed by interrupted time-series: Prais-Winsten regression and multivariable logistic regression.

The prevention measures successfully reduced incidences of traffic injury with alcohol drinking around 88 - 189 cases per annum relative to those estimated under the counterfactual assump-tion. Non-drunk drivers had 18 percent more chances to recover from the traumas than drunk driv-ers. Motorcycle riders with helmets were 60 percent more likely to recover better than those without In conclusion, the prevention measures through public campaign in Mueang district, Khon Kaen province, contributed to a significant decrease in the number of traffic injury cases from alcohol drinking. Helmet wearing and non-drunk driving tended to yield a better treatment outcome.

Further study should be expanded to other provinces with similar prevention measures and injury surveillance record system. This will help establishing a clearer linkage between the prevention measures in order to reduce losses from traffic injury in the longer term.