To mark The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which takes place on Sunday November 21st, PLoS Medicine publishes two research articles on Road Traffic Crashes.
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims takes place on the third Sunday of November every year as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by RoadPeace in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.
Prescribed medicines are responsible for over 3% of road traffic crashes in France
In France, the effect that all medicines have on driving performance has been classified into 4 levels of risk, from level 0 (no or negligible risk) to level 3 (major risk) and according to a study by Ludivine Orriols, from Université Victor Segalen, Bordeaux, France, and colleagues, level 2 and 3 medicines are responsible for over 3% of road traffic crashes in France. The findings of this study, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, are of international importance because in 2006, the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety proposed a classification list based on the French classification system.
The authors identified drivers involved in road traffic crashes in France between July 2005 and May 2008 and used a statistical model to identify factors associated with each driver responsible for a road traffic crash and each driver who was not responsible for a crash.
Overall 72,685 drivers injured in a road traffic crash were part of the study and those who had been prescribed level 2 and level 3 medicines were at higher risk (OR 1.31 and OR 1.25 respectively) of being responsible for the road traffic crash. Furthermore, the authors found that the fraction of road traffic crashes attributable to the use of (prescriptions for) level 2 and 3 medicines was 3.3%.
These results provide strong evidence for the contribution of medicines to the risk of experiencing a road traffic crash and also confirm that the French drug risk classification scheme seems accurate for medicines classified as levels 2 and 3 of risk for road traffic crashes. Therefore, this study reinforces the need for health care workers to provide patients with proper information on the potential effect of any medicine that they are prescribed (or take) on their driving abilities.
Funding: The CESIR-A project was funded by the Afssaps, the French National Research Agency (ANR, DAA nu 0766CO204), the French Medical Research Foundation (Equipe FRM), the French National Medical Research Institute (Equipe INSERM Avenir) and the French Direction Generale de la Sante (DGS). LO is the recipient of a doctoral grant from the French National Institute for Medical Research (INSERM) and the Aquitaine region. Members of the Afssaps participated in data collection, interpretation and review of the manuscript. Neither individual from the CESIR research group received any compensation for their assistance. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: Emmanuel Lagarde is on the Editorial Board of PLoS Medicine.
Citation: Orriols L, Delorme B, Gadegbeku B, Tricotel A, Contrand B, et al. (2010) Prescription Medicines and the Risk of Road Traffic Crashes: A French Registry-Based Study. PLoS Med 7(11): e1000366. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000366
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000366
PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: www.plos.org/press/plme-07-11-orriols.pdf
CONTACT:
Ludivine Orriols
ludivine.orriols@isped.u-bordeaux2.fr
Journal
PLoS Medicine