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Original research
Major trauma among E-Scooter and bicycle users: a nationwide cohort study
  1. Richard Alexander Clough1,
  2. Esther Platt1,
  3. Elaine Cole2,
  4. Mark Wilson3,
  5. Christopher Aylwin2
  1. 1 Department of Major Trauma, St Marys Hospital, London, UK
  2. 2 Centre for Trauma Sciences, Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
  3. 3 Neurosurgeries, Emergencies & Trauma, Division of Medicine, St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Christopher Aylwin, Centre for Trauma Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, London, UK; c.aylwin{at}qmul.ac.uk

Abstract

Objectives To determine the incidence, demographics and injury patterns involved in E-Scooter-related hospital admissions due to significant trauma compared with bicycle-related trauma within England and Wales. To compare morbidity and mortality between groups.

Design A retrospective cohort study based on data which has been prospectively collected and submitted to the UK Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) registry.

Setting Major trauma centres and trauma units within England and Wales.

Participants Patients of any age who were admitted to hospitals in England and Wales with injuries following E-Scooter or bicycle incidents between the dates 1 January 2021–31 December 2021. All patients must have met TARN database inclusion criteria.

Outcomes In-hospital mortality, critical care admission and length of stay (LoS), hospital LoS and discharge destination.

Results There were 293 E-Scooter trauma incidents compared with 2538 bicycle incidents. E-Scooter users were more likely to be admitted to a major trauma centre (p=0.019) or a critical care unit (p<0.001). Serious head and limb trauma (Abbreviated Injury Scale >2) occurred more frequently among the E-Scooter cohort (35.2% vs 19.7%, p<0.001 and 39.9% vs 27.2%, p<0.001, respectively) while serious chest and pelvic trauma were greater among bicycle users (p<0.001 and p=0.003, respectively). Over one-third of E-Scooter injuries were incurred outside the current legislation by patients who were intoxicated by alcohol and drugs (26%, 75/293) or under the age of 17 (14%, 41/293).

Conclusions These early results suggest a greater relative incidence of serious trauma and an alternative pattern of injury among E-Scooter users compared with bicycles.

Trial registration number TARN210101.

  • Traumatic Brain Injury
  • Health Education
  • Public Health

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2022-044722

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    Data availability statement

    All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RC, EP and CA conceived of the work and acquired the data. All authors designed the study, are responsible for implementation of the study and jointly drafted the manuscript. RC performed statistical analysis. All authors analysed the data, revised the manuscript and approved the final version submitted for publication. CA takes responsibility for and is guarantor of all aspects of the work. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years, no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. CA is responsible for the overall content as the guarantor.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.