King Abdullah International Medical Research Center Reports Findings in Risk Management (Healthcare costs of road injuries in Saudi Arabia: A quantile regression analysis)

2021 JUL 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Risk Management is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are the second leading cause of death in Saudi Arabia. Their economic burden is significant but poorly quantified, as limited literature exists locally.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, “We aim to estimate the impact of RTIs on healthcare costs. We included all patients from the hospital’s trauma registry for the year 2017 (n = 381). Due to the availability of data, the analysis focused only on direct medical costs incurred during the hospitalization period. We computed the components of hospitalization costs and evaluated the association between patient and RTI characteristics and total hospitalization costs (the average and median) using quantile and log-linear regression techniques respectively. Patients were relatively young with an average age of 31 years (SD ? 14.6). Overall, patients treated for RTIs cost the hospital around 77,657 Saudi Riyal (SAR) on average. Pedestrian injuries incurred the highest costs. Motor vehicle injuries accounted for the highest procedure-related costs (SAR 19,537). The quantile regressions results suggest that Glasgow coma scale (GCS), admission to intensive care unit (ICU), and hospital length of stay were significantly associated with an increase in hospitalization cost. Hospital home disposition was however, associated with a decrease in cost. One additional day of stay in the hospital increases total hospitalization cost by SAR 3,508. Additionally, the log-linear showed injury severity score (ISS < 16) was associated with a 20% decrease in the geometric mean of the hospitalization costs (p < 0.001). This study underlines the economic burden of RTIs in addition to their impact on population health. The findings may be used to inform policymakers, researchers, and the public about the increasing burden of traffic crashes in the Kingdom.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Public health interventions are warranted to reduce the severity and frequency of RTIs in order to improve traffic safety and reduce associated healthcare costs.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Healthcare costs of road injuries in Saudi Arabia: A quantile regression analysis. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2021;159:106266. Accident Analysis & Prevention can be contacted at: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Accident Analysis & Prevention - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Suliman Alghnam, Population Health Division, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Additional authors for this research include Mohamed Alkelya, Mahdya Aldahnim, Nawfal Aljerian, Ibrahim Albabtain, Alaa Alsayari, Omar B. Da’ar, Khalid Alsheikh and Ali Alghamdi.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2021.106266. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

The publisher’s contact information for the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention is: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England.

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