Background:​ The knowledge of injury severity as a result of motor-vehicle (MV) crashes is a key tool to identify and evaluate prevention activities. Hospital and emergency department (ED) records are a useful source of information to measure injury severity.

Objectives:​ To describe the main characteristics of injured people admitted to ED as a result of a MV crash, and to assess factors related to injury severity and hospital admission.

Methods:​ Cross-sectional design. Subjects were MV injury patients admitted to seven EDs in Barcelona from January 1994 to June 1996. The data analyzed were obtained from the information routinely transmitted from the EDs to the Municipal Institute of Health, based on the processing of ED logs. Univariate and bivariate descriptive statistical analyses were performed, as well as multiple logistic regressions.

Results:​ 60.7% of patients were males, 73.7% were younger than 40 years of age, while 42.2% were motorcycle and moped users and 25.2% were pedestrians. After adjusting for other variables, these three last user groups were at a higher risk of a more severe injury (OR=1.4;​ OR=1.5 and OR=1.7 respectively) and showed a higher likelihood of a hospital admission (OR=1.9;​ OR= 1.7 and OR= 2.1). Patients arriving at the hospital during night-time (OR=2.1) and in hospitals C or D (OR= 2.2 and OR= 2.3 respectively) were also at a higher risk of a hospital admission.

Conclusions:​ The study underscores that in Barcelona, pedestrians and two-wheel vehicle occupants, besides accounting for two-thirds of traffic injury cases, are also the user’s subgroups with a higher risk of a more severe injury as well as a higher chance of admission. The results also point out that decision criteria on the patient need for hospitalization may vary substantially among hospitals in the case of trauma patients.