Trauma in motorcycle riders usually comes with high injury severity and significant mortality and morbidity. The unique vulnerability of motorcyclists results in a high incidence of severe injuries and fatalities. Efforts to improve outcomes require profound understanding of causes and patterns of trauma, as well as trauma systems improvements focused on at-risk demographics. This is a cross-sectional study designed to investigate the trauma type and treatment outcomes in motorcycle accident victims admitted to the largest trauma center in southern Iran, Shiraz, during 2022–2024. Patients who were injured in a motorcycle accident were enrolled in the study. Patients’ data were collected from the Shiraz Trauma Registry, a branch of the National Trauma Registry of Iran (NTRI). Demographic, prehospital and posthospital vital signs and clinical properties, aside from injury patterns of the patients were investigated. In total, 3310 patients were enrolled in the study. Deceased patients had higher median age compared to the survived ones (p-value < 0.01). patients transported by EMS had significantly higher mortality rates (p-value < 0.01). Logistic regression models revealed that prehospital GCS (p-value < 0.01, OR = 0.7), SBP in ER (p-value = 0.04, OR = 0.98), SpO2 in ER (p-value = 0.02, OR = 0.94), GCS in ER (p-value < 0.01, OR = 0.7), and ISS (p-value < 0.01, OR = 1.1) were significantly associated with mortality in the patients. Injury to head (p-value < 0.01, OR = 5.2), face (p-value < 0.01, OR = 0.3), thorax (p-value = 0.03, OR = 1.9), upper extremity (p-value = 0.03, OR = 0.4), and lower extremity (p-value < 0.01, OR = 0.3) had significantly contributed to mortality. This study from Southern Iran reveals young male riders bear a disproportionate burden of motorcycle accident mortality, primarily linked to critical head and thoracic injuries and high Injury Severity Scores. While extremity and facial injuries are common, they are less associated with death. The findings stress the importance of strict helmet laws, early use of trauma scoring for triage, and prioritizing critical care for severe cases. Enhancing prevention, pre-hospital care, and trauma system capacity are key to reducing deaths and improving outcomes in the region.
Farahmand et al. (Mon,) studied this question.