This study purpose to contribute to improving the severity classification standard by providing the data that assists with the development of arbitration for preventing the damage and mortality of the passengers and suggesting the factors that assist with determining the patients with severe trauma on the site of the accident, by examining the factors that affect the human body damage and damage severity depending on the motor vehicle types in frontal crashes.
As for the research method, Korea In-Depth Accident Study was utilized to collect the data from five different emergency medical centers of university-affiliated hospitals from January 1st of 2011 to November 3rd of 2017, and 1,053 passengers involved in frontal crash motor vehicle collisions were set as the research subjects. The motor vehicle types were classified into the passenger motor vehicle, SUV, truck and van, and general characteristics and damage severity were compared. The Abbreviated Injury Scale for different body parts were compared for different motor vehicle types, and the multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to verify the factors that affect the Injury Severity Score(ISS). Also, the multicollinearity was checked to confirm the independence of variables. Finally, the logistic regression was conducted to check the incident rate of severe trauma patients for different motor vehicle types, and the receiver operating characteristics curve, area under curve, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value as well as negative predictive value were verified.
The passenger motor vehicle group was the youngest group, and mostly males made up the truck passengers. For the trucks, the air bag deployment rate was the lowest, and the maximum abbreviated injury scale and injury severity score was the highest. The passenger motor vehicles were shown to cause the most serious head damages, and trucks were shown to cause serious facial and lower limb damages. The damage factors for different motor vehicles were confirmed, which were the wearing of a seatbelt and the deformation extent for passenger motor vehicles, age for SUVs, and the deformation extent for trucks and vans. In case of severe trauma patients, the risk factors of the age, wearing of a seatbelt, differences in the motor vehicle types depending on crumple zones, and the deformation extent exceeding 4 displayed statistical significance.
The deformation extent that causes severe trauma patients was different for motor vehicle types; 4+ for passenger motor vehicles, 3+ for SUVs, 7+ for trucks and 5+ for vans. If the deformation extent can be checked for different motor vehicle types in frontal crashes, the classification for severe trauma patients will become clear. Also, as for the wearing of a seatbelt, differences in motor vehicle types depending on crumple zones, and the deformation extent exceeding 4, it was confirmed that the possibility of a patient not being a severe trauma patient is very high at 93.4% if the total score from the scoring system is 0. Therefore, it is believed that negative test results for severe trauma patients will become more clear if the scoring system above can be utilized at the site of motor vehicle collisions.