Citation

Stoduto G, Vingilis ER, Kapur BM, Sheu WJ, McLellan BA, Liban CB. Proc. Assoc. Adv. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1991; 35: 235-247.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

What is the incidence of alcohol and drugs in a sample of seriously injured motor vehicles collision victims, and what differences do we find when we look at use of alcohol and use of other drugs on demographic variables, injury severity measures and crash variables? The sample selected were all motor vehicle collision admissions to the Regional Trauma Unit at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre in Toronto over a 37 month period (N = 854). Prospective demographic and injury related information were collected, and motor vehicle collision reports were obtained from the Police forces or the Ministry of Transportation. Blood samples were collected on admission and tested for alcohol at the hospital's clinical laboratory. Drug screens were performed on a 2 year sample (N = 474) at he Addiction Research Foundation's clinical laboratory. Demographic data included: sex, age, occupant status, type of vehicle, admission type, and elapsed crash-admission time. Injury severity measures included: mortality, Injury Severity Score, length of hospital stay, and the Disability Rating Scale. Crash variables included: seat belt use (from medical chart), use of safety equipment (from MVC report), type of crash, ejection from vehicle, and speed of subject's vehicle. We achieved a BAC testing rate of 90%. In the BAC tested sample we found 32% of the motor vehicle collision admissions and about 36% of drivers tested positive for blood alcohol. The drivers' mean BAC on admission was found to be 145.2 mg/100 ml. Drug screens revealed that about 41% of drivers tested positive for other drugs in body fluids. The most common other drugs were found to be cannabis (14.6%), benzodiazepines (11.2%) and cocaine (5.5%). In the drug screened sample we found an interaction between other drug use and admission type, with a greater percentage of drug negative subjects admitted directly from the scene. Elapsed time was found to be significantly different for BAC by other drug use, with the greatest length of elapsed time found for the subjects testing other drug positive but BAC negative. We found that BAC positive drivers were significantly more likely to be male, involved in a single vehicle accident, not wearing a seat belt, ejected from the vehicle, and traveling at higher speeds than BAC negative drivers. No differences were found between BAC and/or other drug use on injury severity measures.