Seriously injured road crash casualties in the Netherlands in the period 1993-2008; The real number of in-patients with a minimum MAIS of 2. Road safety policy is aimed at reducing the numbers of road deaths and seriously injured in road safety crashes. In the Netherlands, a 'seriously injured casualty' usually is considered the equivalent of 'in-patient'. This is a road crash casualty who has spent a minimum of one night in hospital. Therefore, the Dutch road safety target is expressed in terms of the number of road deaths and in-patients. However, previous research has shown that 'in-patient' is not necessarily the same as 'seriously injured'. For example, casualties who have no injury are sometimes admitted to hospital for observation only. According to the definition, these casualties are in-patients, even though they sometimes did not sustain any injury at all. Therefore, the Dutch Minister of Transport has followed the SWOV advice to only take into consideration the really seriously injured for future assessments of road safety. The Maximum Abbreviated Injury Score (MAIS) is used to determine when a casualty is seriously injured. This international measure describes the casualty's injury severity. It has been decided to label those casualties as seriously injured who have been admitted to hospital and have a minimum MAIS of 2. This includes injuries like concussions, fractures and injuries that are more serious. This report shows the real numbers of seriously injured by this new definition for the years 1993-2008. It also describes the new method to estimate the actual numbers of seriously injured road crash casualties.
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