Study of factors that may predispose domestic cats to road traffic accidents: part 1.
Between March 2000 and February 2001, six veterinary practices in Cambridgeshire collected data on 117 owned cats which they had examined after a road accident. For one week every month during the same year, the practices distributed questionnaires to the owners of cats which had been examined for reasons other than a road accident, and the data from these cats were checked to ensure that they were representative of the practice records, which were compared with a survey of the owned cat population for age and sex. From this population, the cats that were allowed outdoors and had never been in a road accident were chosen as controls, and compared with the cats that had been in a road accident for age, sex, pedigree status and coat colour. The cats that had been in a road accident differed from the control population with respect to age, sex and pedigree status; for every one-year increase in age, the odds of a road accident decreased by 16 per cent; the odds for males (entire and neutered) being in a road accident were 1.9 times the odds for females (entire and neutered), and the odds for pedigree cats were 0.29 those for non-pedigree cats.
Rochlitz
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Animal Welfare and Human-Animal Interactions Group, Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ES.
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats / Q000293:injuries*; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D010067:Ownership; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000662:veterinary*