Examination of narratives from emergency department presentations to identify road trauma, crash and injury risk factors for different age groups.
BACKGROUND
Road trauma represents a high proportion of injury-related emergency department presentations. Narrative text recorded in the emergency department could provide useful information to monitor road trauma and to identify crash and injury risk factors by age group.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the Public Health Real-time Emergency Department Surveillance System (PHREDSS) to identify road users (i.e. motor vehicle drivers, motor vehicle passengers, motorcyclists, pedal cyclists and pedestrians), and crash (e.g. vehicle speed) and injury risk factors (e.g. non-restraint use) by age group.


METHODS
Narrative text from the PHREDSS in New South Wales, Australia, during 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2012 was reviewed.


RESULTS
A keyword search of all emergency department presentations potentially identified 388,991 road trauma-related presentations and between 6,420 motorbike crashes to 138,889 motor vehicle accident emergency department presentations. Potential crash and injury risk factors were also identified.


CONCLUSIONS
This exploratory study demonstrated the capability of information from PHREDSS to be used to support injury prevention efforts in road safety.
Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research University of New South Wales NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA.
Rebecca J
RJ
Mitchell
Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA.
Mike R
MR
Bambach
D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009517:New South Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D055815:Young Adult