Factors Affecting Motorcycle Accidents among High School Students in Sukhothai, Thailand

Abstract

Background: Motorcycles accidents were the first cause of death among high school students in Thailand and the world. Therefore, realizing the accident factors for prevention planning were significant. Objective: To investigate the factors affecting motorcycle-related traffic accidents among high school students in Sukhothai, Thailand. Multiple-stage random sampling was used to select 450 respondents, and the data were collected through a questionnaire survey. Materials and Methods: The present study was cross-sectional research. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics using a frequency distribution table, percentage, and inferential statistics by the Enter method of binary logistic regression for every single variable and multiple variables. Results: From 450 samples, 217 people (48.2%) had traffic accidents. The chance of motorcycle accidents comprised of no driving license (OR 69.596, 95% CI 16.465 to 99.186), male gender (OR 59.898, 95% CI 33.20 to 72.129), risk riding behavior (OR 29.273, 95% CI 6.377 to 39.372), types of motorcycles (OR 17.23, 95% CI 12.02 to 22.2), riding experiences (OR 16.324, 95% CI 3.644 to 26.28), damaged traffic signs (OR 3.32, 95% CI 1.77 to 6.24), riders’ attitude toward the risk riding (OR 0.306, 95% CI 0.106 to 0.886), the knowledge level on traffic rules (OR 0.282, 95% CI 0.109 to 0.728), and social support (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.44 to 0.94), with statistical significant at 0.05. Conclusion: Based on the present study results, schools and parents should enhance management to cope with accident problems by promoting knowledge of traffic rules, facilitating students to get riding licenses, and reinforcing social support to collaboratively build school models for preventing injuries from riding motorcycles. Keywords: Traffic accident; Motorcycle; High school students