Road traffic injuries among patients attending central hospital of Masjed-Soleyman from March 2008 to 2010

Objective (s): To identify the predictive model of road traffic injuries by a time series model. This was an analytical study involving patients attending central hospital of Masjed –Soleyman (a city in Ahvaz Province), Iran during 24 months, from March 2008 to March 2010. Time series carried out to determine monthly occurrence of road traffic injuries in order to build a statistical model on data. The ARMA Box Jenkins linear model was used and an Autoregressive model was selected. Out of all 1210 injured patients referring to the hospital, 78.5% (n=950) were men. The mean age of patients was 30.57±17.08 years. The majority of injured (35.1%) were 20-29 years old. Autoregressive model was appropriate to describe our data over time. The result indicated the road traffic injuries had an increased pattern by 7 times as compare with previous month on average. The frequency of road traffic injuries is high in men and young age adolescents. The pattern is increasing and there is need for serious public health considerations.