| Summary: | BACKGROUND AND AIM: The study aimed to assess the frequency of head and face injuries in motorcyclists who had an
accident and to find out the relationship between helmet use and frequency of these injuries.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study with multi-stage sampling method provides data on the injured motorcyclists with
road accidents. Data came from a registration form which has documented information of each injured person who had
a road accident and hospitalized in the biggest hospital of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran (Al-Zahra). All
the registration forms were surveyed for hospitalization period, treatment costs, severity of injury, and date of accident
during 2010 (n = 1626). Later, among the list of injured motorcyclists during the last 3 months of the registration form,
125 cases were randomly selected and interviewed by phone regarding occurrence of the head and face injuries and
whether wearing helmet during the accident. Confidence intervals (CI), Chi-square, and Phi and Cramer’s correlation
coefficient were applied. The ethical approval was provided.
RESULTS: Accident by motorcycle was 31.0% of all road accidents. The frequency of motorcycle accidents was higher
in the autumn and among 21-25 year olds. The mean period of hospitalization was 4.3 days and the mean of hospital
costs was about 9000000 Rials [about 8200 United States dollar (USD), in 2010]. Of motorcyclist, 35.0% reported they
were helmeted when they had the accident. The frequency of head and face injuries was 51.0% among all the injured
motorcyclists, 22.0% and 78.0% among the helmeted and non-helmeted motorcyclists, respectively (P = 0.009,
r = -0.267).
CONCLUSION: Motorcycle accidents comprise a large number of road accidents and cause substantial morbidity and
financial impact for the community members. Head and face injuries are the most common trauma in motorcyclists, and
the injury rate is higher among non-helmeted motorcyclists.
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