RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Epidemiological profile of hospitalised injuries among electric bicycle riders admitted to a rural hospital in Suzhou: a cross-sectional study
JF Injury Prevention
JO Inj Prev
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 128
OP 133
DO 10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040618
VO 20
IS 2
A1 Wei Du
A1 Jie Yang
A1 Brent Powis
A1 Xiaoying Zheng
A1 Joan Ozanne-Smith
A1 Lynne Bilston
A1 JingLin He
A1 Ting Ma
A1 Xiaofei Wang
A1 Ming Wu
YR 2014
UL http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/20/2/128.abstract
AB Police reports indicate an increasing burden of electric bike (E-bike) casualties in China; however, hospitalised injury data have not been reported. The aim of the present work was to describe hospitalised injury patterns for E-bikers involved in road crashes and explore injury risk disparities among them. For the period October 2010 to April 2011, this cross-sectional study retrospectively collected information for hospitalised E-bikers involved in road crashes from hospital records, in Suzhou China, using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10) injury diagnosis codes. Injury nature and body region were further categorised using ICD-10 codes. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the risk of specific injury types. We found that hospitalised E-biker injuries (n=323) accounted for 57.2% of road traffic hospitalisations over the 6-month study period. The average age, length of stay and hospitalisation cost were 43.8 years, 10.0 days and ¥8229 (US$1286), respectively. Fractures and head injuries were common. The odds of traumatic brain injuries were significantly elevated for night-time E-bike crashes and incidents other than colliding with motor vehicles. These findings confirm E-bike injuries as an important population health problem and identify elevated injury odds in different E-biker groups. Future injury prevention initiatives should include encouraging helmet use among E-bikers.