Injuries of Three Health Care Districts Employees in Finland

Simo Salminen, Annika Parantainen

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.

DOI: 10.4236/ojsst.2012.23014                

Abstract

Abstract: Occupational injuries in hospitals have two-fold effects, decreasing both safety employees and the level of patient care. The aim of this study is to examine occupational injuries in Finnish hospitals. Three health care districts reported injuries and violent acts and the number of their employees over a period of three years: 2006-2008. Every eighth hospital worker was involved in an occupational injury each year, which is more than among the general working population. In addition, every twentieth hospital employee had encountered violence or a threat of violence in their work, which corresponds to the risk of violence among working men. There were huge differences in injury and violence rates between health care districts, which were due to different reporting procedures used in districts. Underreporting is another possible explanatory factor especially for minor injuries and verbal aggression.

Keywords

Occupational Injuries; Violence; Health Care

1. Introduction

Occupational injuries in hospitals have two-fold effects. First, they decrease the safety of employees. Secondly, they also decrease the level of patient care, when other employees have to cover the work of the injured worker. In this way, occupational safety can become a critical issue for patient safety. The aim of this study was to examine occupational injuries in Finnish hospitals. As far as we know, there are no previous publications regarding the injuries of Finnish hospital employees.

In the United States, the most frequent injuries in hospitals were overexertion, slips, contact with objects, falls, and assaults [1,2]. Falls were the leading cause of occupational injury among health care workers, and facility support workers were at the highest risk of falling in hospitals [3]. The most frequent overexertion injury occurred during patient transfer to or from a bed [4]. Younger nurses in particular were prone to overexertion injuries [5].

Needle stick injuries were common, but minor. They were the most frequent injury type in a teaching hospital in Midwestern [6] and in a university hospital in Brazil [7]. Procedures involving intravenous catheters had the highest needle stick injury rate in a university hospital in Taiwan [8] and in Virginia [9]. However, needle stick injuries may have severe consequences, such as the hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [10]. Depression and anxiety were also possible psychological reactions to needle stick injury [11]. Health care workers with over 10 years experience at work had the highest risk of needle stick and sharps injuries [12,13].

Violence is another work safety problem in hospitals. One out of five European nurses had been a victim of patient violence [14]. In Michigan, three out of four emergency physicians had been verbally threatened, and one out of four had been a victim of physical assault [15]. In Japan, 24% of physicians had experienced verbal violence, and 2% physical violence at their work [16]. Physical violence mainly occurred in nursing homes, and in intensive care, psychiatric and emergency departments in Minnesota [17]. Nurses in emergency departments most often felt unsafe due to violence [18]. Younger age [19], female gender [20], shorter tenure [21] and lack of formal professional education [22] were risk factors of physical violence. Patients were most often the perpetrators [23], whereas in the American hospitals workeron-worker violence exceeded patient-to-worker violence [24].

2. Methods

The three districts reported injuries and violent acts over a period of three years: 2006-2008. Three years was selected as the follow-up period, as the number of injuries was sufficient and the effects of random factors related to one year do not determine the results. The health care districts also reported their number of employees per year and the sum of three years was used in Tables 1 and 3. A health district consists of one bigger central hospital and several smaller hospitals in the certain geographical area. All hospitals in the health districts were public ones. The number of employees in these three health districts represented 14% of the all employees in Finnish hospitals.

The health care districts reported the occupational injuries and violent acts against their employees. One district (A) sent the list of injuries that their insurance company had collected. Two other districts used their own reporting system and sent a list of injuries based on this information. The sum of three years’ injuries and violent acts were used in Tables 1 and 2.

3. Results

The three health care districts reported a total of 3776 occupational injuries to their employees during 2006- 2008. The total work years of the employees in these districts were 31,504 years, and the accident frequency (accidents per 1000 work years) was 119.9.

There were huge differences between health care districts in injury frequency (Table 1). The frequency reported by district B was seven times higher than that of district A. The frequency of district C was near that of district B.

These injuries caused altogether 10,055 absence days, which means an average of 9.1 days per injury. The most serious injuries occurred in district C, where injuries caused an average of 17.6 sick days. In district B, the average was 8.7 days and in district A 4.5 days.

Figure 1 presents occupational injuries by injury type in 2006-2008 in all the three health districts. Needle stick injuries were the most common, and made up one fourth

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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