Driver vehicle crashes and mental health challenges among commuter college students

Abstract

Introduction

Previous research into the sociodemographic correlates of driver crashes has highlighted the variables of age, sex, and socioeconomic status, however, limited scholarship reports on the relationship between crashes and mental health.

Methods

As part of the baseline data obtained from a randomized controlled trial to study interventions to change commuter behavior, we gathered self-reported driver vehicle crashes from the past four months and self-reported mental health status over the past 30 days from a subset of commuter college students who drive.

Results

We found that the average number of mental health challenged days was 9.9 per month, and the rate of being in a driver crash within the past four months was 7.6%. We found that the number of days of mental health challenges was positively correlated with having been in a driver crash in the past four months in both bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Conclusion

We note that causality is feasible in both directions in this case, i.e., being in a crash could depress mental health, and having poor mental health may also increase the likelihood of being in a crash while driving, in a manner similar to distracted driving. This study supports previous research that struggles with mental health problems may have a relationship with the likelihood of being in a crash while driving.