[Psychosocial repercussions of hand injuries and support for patients]

PSYCHOSOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS OF HAND INJURIES AND SUPUPORT FOR PATIENTS. There are many nonmedical factors influencing a patient's return to work. To optimize care, the practitioner must be aware of the need to go beyond the scope of their own specialty. In particular, they must be able to identify patients with psychological comorbidity and/or chronic pain, in order to direct them as early as possible towards appropriate care. They must also pay particular attention to administrative requests whether these come from the patient themselves or from their insurers. Last but not least, the decompartmentalization of professional practices and the improvement of communication between the stakeholders are essential, although very complex to implement. In the Île-de-France and Centre regions of France, two associations offer support that meets all these best practices.

[An occupational acute poisoning incident of diethylene glycol monobutyl ether]

Objective: To analyze the causes and clinical characteristics of 9 cases of occupational acute poisoning with diethylene glycol monobutyl ether, and provide a basis for clinical diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and prevention. Methods: The leakage accident of diethylene glycol monobutyl ether occurred in an electronic company in Janvary 2021, in Weihai City was analyzed. The clinical manifestations, laboratory examinations, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of 9 cases of diethylene glycol monobutyl ether poisoning were summarized. Results: All 9 patients had moderate chemical eye burns and chemical conjunctivitis, and were immediately given symptomatic treatment. They fully recovered after 14 days. Conclusion: Patients who inhale diethylene glycol monobutyl ether for a short time have obvious eye burns, but early detection and timely treatment can achieve better prognosis.

[Reinsertion to the work in workers with partially permanent disability for hand injury]

BACKGROUND

Hand injuries resulting from accidents at work are one of the main causes of disability in workers. Every worker ruled with Partial Permanent Disability must legally be reinstated to the same workplace.

OBJECTIVE

To know the prevalence of reintegration and causes of non-reintegration into workers with Partial Permanent Disability due to hand injuries.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A descriptive, observational, and retrospective study, which included 100% of the opinions of Parcial Permanent Disability due to hand injuries, generated from 2012 to 2016 at UMF 61 of Veracruz.

RESULTS

143 cases were analyzed, 127 (88.8%) were men and 16 (11.2%) women, with a mean age of 37.3 ± 11.6 years. Labor reintegration in the same company occurred in 60 (42%) of the cases, 50 (35%) were reinstated in another company and 33 (23.1%) were not reinstated to work. Regarding work termination: 51 (35.7%) workers were laid off after their ruling, 13 (9.1%) resigned, 12 (8.4%) terminated their contract, and 7 (4.9%) were retired. Currently 72 (50.3%) workers continue to perform physical work and 18 (12.6%) did not return to work.

CONCLUSIONS

Labor reintegration occurred in less than half of the cases ruled. The main cause of the non-reintegration was the unjustified dismissal by the company where the accident occurred. Not reintegrating into the same workplace has: legal, economic, medical and social implications to the worker.

[Investigation and analysis of a mass ammonia gas poisoning accident]

Objective: To investigation and analysis of ammonia gas leakage in a meat factory. Methods: In April 2013, Enterprise managers and workers were investigated, and clinical data of 24 patients were analyzed. Results: The company caused a leak in the ammonia pipeline maintenance operation, Among the patients, 20 had stimulus response and 4 had mild poisoning. Conclusion: To prevent group occupational ammonia poisoning, it is necessary to strengthen the awareness of occupational disease prevention of enterprise owners and the awareness of self-protection of workers.

[Occupational accidents by biological risk in clinical laboratory workers. Yopal, Colombia]

BACKGROUND

Clinical laboratory workers are at permanent risk of suffering an occupational accident due to exposure to biohazard. These accidents may cause severe diseases, such as HIV, HBV or HCV.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the behavior of accidents due to occupational exposure to biohazard agents, and the characteristics of reports of occupational accidents in clinical laboratories in Yopal, Colombia.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Observational descriptive study with exploratory component and retrospective analysis of incident report forms of presumed occupational accidents.

RESULTS

For the period between January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2018, an occupational accident percentage of 24.6 (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 16.7-32.5) was estimated, and an underreporting percentage of 39.3 (95% CI, 21.3-57.3). The main reasons for not reporting were a perceived lack of time (45.4%), and a diminished perception of risk exposure (36.4%). In contrast, factors associated with the probability of having less occupational accidents included being hired for service time (prevalence ratio [PR] = 0.19; 95% CI, 0.04-0.89; p = 0.034), and the permanent use of personal protective equipment (PR = 0.14; 95% IC, 0.02-0.88; p =0.036).

CONCLUSION

Accident statistics in clinical laboratories prove the necessity to systematically reorganize risk management strategies that take into account human factor, organizational culture and control mechanisms.

EPIDEMIOLOGY OF TRAUMATIC INJURIES OF THE UPPER LIMBS IN A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the epidemiology of traumatic injuries of the upper limbs treated at a university hospital and identify the causes, types of injuries, and risk factors.

METHODS

A prospective study was performed with accidents resulting in trauma categorized into three groups: domestic, occupational, or transportation-related. A questionnaire containing information about the patient and the accident was administered. Lesion characteristics were evaluated according to the injured area, the type of injury, and the management strategy adopted for each case.

RESULTS

A total of 613 patients were evaluated. The most frequent accidents were domestic (66.6%), predominantly involving men (67.9%) with a mean age of 31 years. Wrist lesions prevailed in transportation-related (31.1%) and domestic (29.6%) accidents, and in accidents involving fingers at work (54.2%). Closed fractures were more frequent and conservative treatment was indicated most often. Serious injuries were associated with finger accidents (39.4%). There was a correlation between the level of education and the type of accident.

CONCLUSION

Traumatic injuries of the upper limbs were more frequent in domestic accidents and in male patients. Closed fractures were the most common type of fracture and were usually treated conservatively. Serious injuries were more often related to finger trauma. Education level influenced domestic, transportation-related, and occupational accidents. Level of Evidence IV, Case Series.

Prediction of Return-to-original-work after an Industrial Accident Using Machine Learning and Comparison of Techniques

BACKGROUND

Many studies have tried to develop predictors for return-to-work (RTW). However, since complex factors have been demonstrated to predict RTW, it is difficult to use them practically. This study investigated whether factors used in previous studies could predict whether an individual had returned to his/her original work by four years after termination of the worker's recovery period.

METHODS

An initial logistic regression analysis of 1,567 participants of the fourth Panel Study of Worker's Compensation Insurance yielded odds ratios. The participants were divided into two subsets, a training dataset and a test dataset. Using the training dataset, logistic regression, decision tree, random forest, and support vector machine models were established, and important variables of each model were identified. The predictive abilities of the different models were compared.

RESULTS

The analysis showed that only earned income and company-related factors significantly affected return-to-original-work (RTOW). The random forest model showed the best accuracy among the tested machine learning models; however, the difference was not prominent.

CONCLUSION

It is possible to predict a worker's probability of RTOW using machine learning techniques with moderate accuracy.

The Perceived Socioeconomic Status Is an Important Factor of Health Recovery for Victims of Occupational Accidents in Korea

We aimed to examine whether there is a correlation between the health recovery of industrial accident victims and their perceived socioeconomic status. Data were obtained from the first Panel Study of Worker's Compensation Insurance, which included 2,000 participants. We performed multivariate regression analysis and determined the odds ratios for participants with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status and for those with a subjectively lower middle socioeconomic status using 95% confidence intervals. An additional multivariate regression analysis yielded the odds ratios for participants with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status and those with a subjectively upper middle socioeconomic class using 95% confidence intervals. Of all participants, 299 reported a full recovery, whereas 1,701 did not. We examined the odds ratio (95% confidence intervals) for participants' health recovery according to their subjective socioeconomic status while controlling for sex, age, education, tobacco use, alcohol use, subjective state of health prior to the accident, chronic disease, employment duration, recovery period, accident type, disability status, disability rating, and economic participation. The odds of recovery in participants with a subjectively lower middle socioeconomic status were 1.707 times greater (1.264-2.305) than that of those with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status. Similarly, the odds of recovery in participants with a subjectively upper middle socioeconomic status were 3.124 times greater (1.795-5.438) than that of those with a subjectively lower socioeconomic status. Our findings indicate that participants' perceived socioeconomic disparities extend to disparities in their health status. The reinforcement of welfare measures is greatly needed to temper these disparities.

Association between Occupational Accidents and Sleep Apnea in Hospital Staff

BACKGROUND

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a common disorder in which instability of the upper airways leads to a reduction or cessation of airflow during sleep. Sleep disorders such as OSAS increase the risk of occupational accidents and impaired work performance. Sleep deprivation during shift increases the risk of occupational accidents among health care employees. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between occupational injuries in hospital staff and the risk of sleep apnea.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted on hospital staff of Masih Daneshvari Hospital in 2012. In this study, the hospital staff's (715) response to the Berlin questionnaire plus additional information including a history of an occupational accident, night shifts, less than four hours of night sleep, history of smoking, chronic disease and quality of sleep were assessed. Information obtained was analyzed using SPSS 15.

RESULTS

In general, 27.6% reported a history of occupational accidents. The incidence of occupational accidents in the high-risk group for sleep apnea was significantly higher than the low-risk group (OR=2.736, CI=1.522-4.917, P=0.001). The results of logistic regression analysis also showed a statistically significant association between occupational accidents and risk of sleep apnea (OR = 2.247, CI = 1.194-4.231, P= 0.012).

CONCLUSION

This study showed that the incidence of occupational accidents in the hospital employees is strongly related to the probability of OSA. Therefore, special attention should be directed to respiratory sleep disorders in order to reduce occupational injuries at hospitals.