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. Method: 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. Conclusion: This exploratory study demonstrated the capability of information from PHREDSS to be used to support injury prevention efforts in road safety.