Evalution of seat belt using effect in mortality via ISS (Injury Severity Score)and AIS (Abbreviated Injury Score in thorax trauma patients

Evalution of seat belt using effect in mortality via ISS (Injury severity score)and AIS (Abbreviated injury score) in thorax trauma patientsTraffic accidents are one of the primary causes of mortality worldwide.Most of the blunt chest trauma injuries result from road traffic accidents. The ofseat belts is the most efficient way for reducing morbidity and mortality in roadtraffic accidents. The rate of seat belt use in motor vehicles is between 4.7%to37.5%in Turkey. Both the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and Abbreviated InjuryScore (AIS) are scoring systems which are used to estimate the probability ofmortality and morbidity in trauma patients. In this study, we aimed to investigatethe effects of seat belt use on mortality and morbidity by calculating ISS and AISin patients wearing and not wearing seat belts and suffering from blunt chesttrauma following road traffic accidents.A total of 480 motor vehicle occupants admitted to the Gazi UniversityHospital Adult Emergency Department were prospectively analyzed and 125 ofthe patients who suffered a blunt chest trauma and were wearing or not wearing aseat belt at the time of the accident were included in the study. The frequencydistribution and descriptive statistics were used for the statistical analyses. Foreach comparison group, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, histograms and P-P graphswere used. The correlation between thorax AIS and ISS were calculated withSpearman?s correlation test. The Mann-Whitney U test with Bonferroniadjustment was used for calculating differences between the groups.Only 28%of the patients in the study group were determined to be wearinga seat belt the remaing 72% were not wearing a seat belt at the time of theaccident.The ISS and thorax, head and face AIS scores were found to be low inpatients who were wearing seat belts compared to those not wearing seat belts andthis difference was found to be statistically significant.The duration of hospital stay was found to be longer in patients with ahigher injury score. It was thus determined that use of seat belts would reduce theseverity of the injury and the length of hospital stay.While the rate of mortality was determined to be higher in patients withhigh ISS and AIS scores, there is no significant relationship was found betweenthe mortality rate and the use of seat belts.In conclusion, we found that even though it was required by law, the rateof seat belt use is very low in motor vehicle occupants, even though using seatbelts reduces the severity of injury following motor vehicle injuries, providedprotection for thorax, head and face injuries and reduces the length of hospitalstay.Key words: Seat belt, Traffic accident, Chest trauma