Tony Lambert delphine1939@videotron,ca
2007-01-01
Many report worse long-term health after car crash
Last Updated: 2006-12-29 10:31:49 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drivers who survive serious car crashes show long-term ill effects on their health, a new study shows.
Eighteen months after the accident, the drivers' physical health had improved, but their mental and general health had declined, whether or not they had been admitted to a hospital for treatment after the crash, the researchers found.
This suggests that car crashes take an unrecognized toll on the general population's health, Dr. Shanthi N. Ameratunga of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues conclude. They call for research to better understand who is at risk of long-term ill-health after an accident.
Ameratunga's team interviewed 218 car drivers who had survived crashes in which at least one person had to be hospitalized, usually within 48 hours of the accident, and checked back with them 5 and 18 months later. They compared them to 254 randomly chosen drivers who had not been involved in accidents recently.
Forty-three percent of drivers admitted to the hospital after the crash reported being in poorer health 18 months later, compared to 20% of crash drivers who were not hospitalized and 7% of drivers in the comparison group, the researchers report in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The investigators calculate that the hospitalized drivers were 10 times more likely to have declined in health than drivers who hadn't been involved in crashes, while the non-hospitalized drivers were at about triple the risk.
Among the non-hospitalized drivers, those reporting worse health were actually worse off than the hospitalized drivers who reported a decline in health.
"These findings demonstrate that mortality and serious injury only tell part of the story for persons involved in motor vehicle crashes," Dr. Craig D. Newgard of Oregon Health and Science University in Portland writes in an editorial accompanying the study. Newgard concludes by urging safe driving and use of "age-appropriate" restraints such as seatbelts. "Preventing the event is much easier than resolving the aftermath," he adds.
SOURCE: Annals of Emergency Medicine, December 2006.
