A recent study from Tampere University Hospital examined electric scooter injuries treated at the TAUH emergency department. The study included patients who had injured themselves while riding an electric scooter during the first two years of their use, between April 2019 and April 2021.
“High-quality research evidence is important in providing background information for new phenomena in healthcare”, says the main researcher, Docent Aleksi Reito from TAUH.
A number of studies have been published worldwide on e-scooter injuries, and the most common injury types have been described fairly comprehensively. However, there have been no studies published investigating the injury rates in proportion to scooter usage.
“Finland has a unique healthcare system, and our city has only one hospital providing emergency care. Furthermore, for a certain period of time there were only two e-scooter sharing companies operating in Tampere. Therefore, we came up with the idea of asking the companies for their data on scooter usage volumes and studying them in relation to patient numbers”, Aleksi Reito continues.
Accidents can happen with any vehicle, but, according to the researchers, the essential thing here is the number of injuries in proportion to usage volume, i.e. the incidence of injuries. In the TAUH study, the incidence of any injury requiring emergency care was 18 for every 100 000 rides. The incidence of major trauma was 5.9 per 100 000 rides. “These results are important reference values when evaluating the effectiveness of potential safety measures on e-scooter use in future”, Aleksi Reito reviews the research results.
In total, during the two years, there were 335 emergency department visits by 331 patients with an e-scooter-associated injury. No injury type was noticeably overrepresented, as the injuries were evenly distributed between the head and the limbs. The most severe injuries were complex head and facial fractrures. As much as 44 per cent of the visits occured between midnight and 6am.
“The typical patient is a young adult who, under the influence of alcohol, suffers an injury at nighttime”, Aleksi Reito summarizes the results. “Unfortunately, some of the patients sustained severe injuries resulting in long-term or even permanent harm”, Reito continues.
“Understandably, the media is interested in e-scooter-related injuries, and we receive a lot of inquiries concerning emergency department visits”, says Mikko Franssila, the Chief Physician at Emergency Department Acuta and one of the researchers in the study. “I’m glad that this collaboration with TAUH Musculoskeletal Center now uncovers the actual rate and profile of injuries”, he continues.
The study Incidence of Electric Scooter–Associated Injuries in Finland From 2019 to 2021 has been published in JAMA Network Open (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791039).
Further information: Docent Aleksi Reito, MD, PhD, Tampere University Hospital, Musculoskeletal Centre, aleksi.reito@pshp.fi