EVALUATION OF THE BURDEN OF PEDESTRIANS’ INJURIES IN QATAR FROM ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS IN TERMS OF HEALTH CARE RESOURCES AND COST

Background: Road traffic injures is a significant public health issue which increase the global concern after being the tenth leading causes of death worldwide. The major victims from this issue are road users which include drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians. According to Qatar National Road Safety Strategy, every year around 220 people lose their lives and a further 550 victims are seriously injured due to road traffic accidents (National Road Safety Strategy, 2013-2022). However, pedestrians’ fatal injuries constitute about twelve percent of the total death rate.

Objective: To investigate the health care resources and costs burden of pedestrian injuries from Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) in Qatar during 2009 to 2011 and to estimate the injury severity score and mortality rates among these patients in order to provide evidence on the burden of managing pedestrians’ injuries in Qatar.

Methods: A retrospective cross sectional analysis of data collected from Hamad General Hospital trauma registry between January 2009 and December 2011. We used a cost model for various healthcare services used by the HMC Finance Department. Resource use and cost data are produced across various injury severity scores and years. Since this study is investigating and analyzing pedestrians’ injury resources and costs, the injury severity score is chosen as the main variable reflecting the total cost, length of stay (LOS) cost, intensive care unit (ICU) cost, ward unit cost, total procedure cost, total diagnostic cost, and blood unit cost. The frequency of sex, nationality 1 (Arab – Non-Arab – Qatari), nationality 2 (Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, and others), and year were analyzed. Data were analyzed using SPSS program.

Results: The discoveries of this report could be determined as the following; the majority of pedestrians’ injury was males and the highest rate of admission was in year 2011. It can be noticed that there are significant differences in diagnosis cost due to years with p-value <0.0001. The injury severity score had a strong relationship with the total cost, length of stay (LOS), total procedure cost, total diagnostic cost, and blood unit cost. Thus, there are significant differences between groups of total procedure cost, LOS cost, blood unit cost, and total cost due to ISS with p-value <0.0001. The injury severity score had a strong relationship with the total cost, length of stay (LOS), total procedure cost, total diagnostic cost, and blood unit cost.

Conclusion: This report offers evidence on healthcare resources and costs burden of pedestrians’ injuries over three years period in Qatar. It gives indication on how to better manage these patients in terms of healthcare resource allocations, and can be used in future planning by policy makers.