<b>Elderly people victim of traffic accidents: epidemiologic aspects and impact on their daily lives</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascihealthsci.v25i1.2247

Abstract

The objective for this study was to characterize the elderly population victim of traffic accidents and to analyze the impact of the accident on their lives. All victims of traffic accidents in the city area of Maringá, state of Paraná, Brazil, in 1995 aged 60 or more were studied. Data were obtained from the police official crash reports and from interviews. It was observed that 68 (77%) of the victims were county residents. The occurrence rate was 329.2/100,000 inhabitants and the case-fatality rate was 11.8%. Most of the victims were male (67; 76%) and pedestrians (52%); 16 (18%) conductors and 11 (13%) cyclists. The inquest revealed that 52% of the accidents occurred near the victim's residence. All the victims had recovered their functional capacity to daily activities and the most important changes were psychosocial and were extended to the family. The results show that traffic accidents constitute a major problem to the elderly people.