Driving Record of Medical and Surgical Patients

Abstract

Records of accidents and driving violations for 3 yr. prior to hospitalization were obtained for 798 medical-surgical patients with active driver licenses. Results indicate that the accident involvement of medical-surgical patients is not significantly different from that of psychiatric patients or from that of a large random sample of male California drivers. With respect to driving violations, both patient groups had a significantly higher record of violations than the comparison group. High-accident involvement was associated with genito-urinary and respiratory disorders. The findings strongly suggest that accident risk may almost triple as the severity of medical-surgical symptoms increases to the point requiring hospitalization.