Road traffic accidents and disability: a cross-section study from Turkey.

Purpose: To investigate socio-demographic features, lesions which caused disabilities and the rate of disabilities caused by particular lesions and thus to reveal how disabilities are evaluated and general characteristics of disabilities due to road traffic accidents in Turkey.

Method: In this study we retrospectively reviewed 563 victims of road traffic accidents evaluated by the Department of Forensic Medicine, Ankara University, between 1 July 1993 and 31 December 2002 to determine whether they had disabilities and to estimate the rate of disabilities. We collected data about age, gender, trials outcomes, affected body parts, surgical interventions, lesions taken into account in estimation of disabilities, the rate of disabilities.