Influence Of Personality And Alcohol-Use On Risky Driving Behaviour And Accident Proneness Among Injured Drivers Treated In A Teaching Hospital In Oshogbo, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Road traffic accidents in Nigeria have been on the increase in recent years despite the various

programme designed to reduce the carnage on Nigerian roads. Various factors have been

implicated in accident aetiology and these include personal predilection to risky driving

behaviour, accident proneness and alcohol use. Personality traits of extraversion and

neuroticism have been implicated in accident proneness based on several studies carried out in

developing countries. Therefore, this study examined the influence of personality types and

alcohol use on risky driving behaviour and accident proneness among injured drivers treated in

Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital (LAUTECH), Osogbo, Osun

State.

A cross-sectional survey research design was used for the study. One hundred and twenty

participants were selected from LAUTECH Orthopaedic, Accident and Emergency

Physiotherapy Unit and outpatients‘ clinic using consecutive recruitment. A questionnaire

consisting of five (5) sections made up of standardized instruments was used in collecting data

for the study. Informed consent and permission were obtained from both the participants and

the hospital administrations before administering questionnaire on the respondents. Five (5)

hypotheses were tested using t-tests and multiple regression analysis at P< 0.05 significant

level.

Results indicated that female participants were more prone to accident than their male

counterparts {t (118) = 4.03; P