Background

Road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death for young people. More than a million people die each year on the world’s roads, and the risk of dying as a result of a road traffic injury is highest in Africa.

Methods

A prospective hospital based study was undertaken to assess injury characteristics and outcome of road traffic accident among victims at Adult Emergency Department of Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A structured pre-tested questionnaire was used to gather the required data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to identify predictors of fatalities among the road traffic crash victims.

Results

A total of 230 road traffic accident victims were studied. The majority of the study subjects were men 165 (71.7 %) and the male/female ratio was 2.6:1. The victims’ ages ranged from 14 to 80 years with the mean and standard deviations of 32.15 and ± 14.38 years respectively. Daily laborers (95 (41.3 %)) and students (28 (12.2 %)) were the majority of road traffic accident victims. Head (50.4 %) and musculoskeletal (extremities) (47.0 %) were the most common body region injured. Fractures (78.0 %) and open wounds (56.5 %) were the most common type of injuries sustained. The overall length of hospital stay (LOS) ranged from 1 day to 61 days with mean (± standard deviation) of 7.12 ± 10.5 days and the mortality rate was 7.4 %. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that age of the victims (ß = 0.16, p < 0.05), systolic blood pressure on admission (ß = −0.35, p < 0.001) and Glasgow coma scale (ß = −0.44, p < 0.001) were statistically significant predictors of fatalities among the victims.

Conclusions

This study showed diverse injury characteristics and high morbidity and mortality among the victims attending Adult Emergency Department of Tikur Anbessa specialized hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The findings reflect that road traffic accident is a major public health problem. Urgent road traffic accident preventive measures and prompt treatment of the victims are warranted in order to reduce morbidity and mortality among the victims.