The effect of psychoactive substances used on clinical outcomes in injured drivers referred to emergency medicine; case-control study

Abstract Objective The use of psychoactive substances increases the risk of accidents. This study evaluated the relationship between the type of psychoactive substances among traffic injured admitted to the medical center. Methods Injured drivers (100 used drugs), (260 control group), who were transferred to 7-Tir Hospital from April 2021 to March 2022 were studied. The information related to the accident scene, personal characteristics, and the substance used was collected from the police and the medical center documents. We used multiple logistic regression to find the important factor in outcomes. Results The mean age of the case group (37.49 ± 13.61) compared to the control group (34.18 ± 14.05) was significant (p = 0.044). The most common substances in the case group were opioids which had the highest mean age (41.90 ± 13.541). Injured who used sedatives had higher signs of head trauma than the others. Also, being guilty had a remarkable difference in the groups (94.6 vs 62.4 p = < 0.001). Motorcyclist drivers were 185(65%) responsible for the accident, in addition, 69(69%) were in the case group. Head trauma, type of accident, and level of triage had a significant effect on the death of the injured. Conclusion Using sedatives causes increased head trauma. Driving under the effect of psychoactive drugs is more common among motorcycle drivers, and a large percentage of them are guilty of accidents.