Full text

Turn on search term navigation

© 2014 Papa et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Previous studies identified comorbidities as predictors of older driver performance and driving pattern, while the direct impact of comorbidities on road crash risk in elderly drivers is still unknown. The present study is a cross-sectional aimed at investigating the association between levels of comorbidity and crash involvement in adult and elderly drivers. 327 drivers were stratified according to age range in two groups: elderly drivers (age ≥70 years old, referred as older) and adult drivers (age <70 years old, referred as younger). Driving information was obtained through a driving questionnaire. Distance traveled was categorized into low, medium and high on the basis of kilometers driven in a year. CIRS-illness severity (IS) and CIRS-comorbidity indices (CI) in all populations were calculated. Older drivers had a significantly higher crash involvements rate (p = .045) compared with the younger group based on the number of licensed drivers. Dividing comorbidity indices into tertiles among all licensed subjects, the number of current drivers significantly decreased (p<.0001) with increasing level of comorbidity. The number of current drivers among older subjects significantly decreased with increasing comorbidity level (p = .026) while no difference among younger group was found (p = .462). Among younger drivers with increasing comorbidity level, the number of road accidents significantly increased (p = .048) and the logistic regression analysis showed that comorbidity level significantly associated with crash involvement independent of gender and driving exposure. Older subjects with high level of comorbidity are able to self-regulate driving while comorbidity burden represents a significant risk factor for crash involvements among younger drivers.

Details

Title
Comorbidities and Crash Involvement among Younger and Older Drivers
Author
Papa, Michela; Boccardi, Virginia; Prestano, Raffaele; Angellotti, Edith; Desiderio, Manuela; Marano, Luigi; Rizzo, Maria Rosaria; Paolisso, Giuseppe
First page
e94564
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2014
Publication date
Apr 2014
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1514809739
Copyright
© 2014 Papa et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.