Assessment of the prevalence of occupational accidents and their influential factors in an electricity distribution company during a five-year period
Keywords:
Occupational accidents, Injuries, IranAbstract
Background: Occupational accidents have been considered as one of the most important crippling factors contributing to disabilities and life-threatening situations in many countries. This study was conducted to survey the prevalence of occupational accidents and the factors of that lead to injuries in an Electricity Distribution Company during a five-year period.
Methods: In this descriptive study, the accident report form included items asking about the season of the year when the accident occurred, the ages and the average age of those injured, the type of employment, work experience, nature of the injuries that occurred, parts of the body affected, treatments that were applied, average number of days lost per accident, the levels of education of those involved, and their marital status. Data was analyzed using SPSS.
Results: A total of 66 Electricity Distribution Company workers were determined to be suffering from injuries due to accidents. The accidents mostly occurred in the summer (33%). Most of the injured workers (16.7%) belonged to the age groups of 25 to 29 and 40 to 44; there were no accidents reported for workers who were less than 20. About 48% of the accident victims had to be hospitalized. Furthermore, 35% of the accident victims were treated in outpatient clinics, and 7.4% of the accident victims died. We demonstrated that there were significant relationships between: 1) marital status and accidental injuries (P<0.001); 2) the average age of those injured among both permanent and temporary workers (P<0.001), 3) the level of education and the consequences of the accidents (P<0.001), and 4) the average of days lost per accident in both the permanent and temporary workers (P<0.001). In this study, no significant relationships were found between the accident occurrence and age (P>0.05) or work experience and the distribution of the accidents (P>0.05).
Conclusion: This study indicated that most of the injuries in these accidents were related to the nature of employment, marital status, and level of education. The results showed the necessity for providing appropriate safety training for the workers.
References
Govanović G, Aranđelović M, Govanović M. Multidisciplinary aspects of occupational accidents and injuries. Working and Living Environmental Protection Series. 2004;2(4):325–33. [Google Scholar]
Majori S, Bonizzato G, Signorelli D, Lacquaniti S, Andreeta L, Baldo V. Epidemiology and prevention of domestic injuries among children in the Verona area (north-east Italy) Ann Ig. 2002;14(6):495–502. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Takala J. Global Estimates of Fatal Occupational Accidents. Epidemiol. 1999;10:640–6. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Feyer AM, Williamson AM, Stout N, Driscoll T, Usher H, Langley JD. Comparison of work related fatal injuries in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand: method and overall findings. Inj Prev. 2001;7(1):22–8. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Dong W, Vaughan P, Sullivan K, Fletcher T. Mortality study of construction workers in the UK. Int J Epidemiol. 1995 Aug;24(4):750–7. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Halvani GH, Jafarinodoushan R, Mirmohammadi SJ, Mehrparvar AH. A survey on occupational accidents among construction industry workers in Yazd city: Applying Time Series 2006–2011. JOHE. 2012;1(1) [Google Scholar]
Mohammadfam I, Moghimbeigi A. Evaluation of Injuries among a Manufacturing Industry Staff in Iran. Journal of Res Health Sci. 2009;9(1):7–12. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Choobineh AR, Amirzadeh F. General occupational health. 6th ed. Shiraz: Publishers of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences; 2003. [Persian]. [Google Scholar]
Azadeh A, Nouri J, Mohammad Fam I. The impacts of total system design factors on human performance in power plants. Am J Appl sci. 2005;2:1301–4. [Google Scholar]
Engel HO. Accident proneness and illness proneness: a review. J R Soc Med. 1991;84(3):163–4. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Dembe AE. The social consequences of occupational injuries and illnesses. Am J Ind Med. 2001;40:403–17. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
O’Connor TG, Davies L, Dunn J, Golding J. Distribution of accidents, injuries, and illnesses by family type. ALSPAC Study Team. Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood. Pediatrics. 2000 Nov;106(5):E68. Pubmed. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Grossman DC. The history of injury control and the epidemiology of child and adolescent injuries. Future Child. 2000 Spring-Summer;10(1):23–52. Pubmed. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Melamed S, Yekutieli D, Froom P, Kristal-Boneh E, Ribak J. Adverse work and environmental conditions predict occupational injuries. The Israeli cardiovascular occupational risk factors determination in Israel (CORDIS) study. Am J Epidemiol. 1999;150:18–26. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Cloutier E. The effect of age on safety and work practices among domestic trash collectors in Quebec. Saf Sci. 1994;17:291–308. [Google Scholar]
Wong TW. Occupational injuries among construction workers in Hong Kong. Occup Med (Oxf) 1994;44:247–52. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Salminen ST. Epidemiological analysis of serious occupational accidents in southern Finland. Scand J Soc Med. 1994;22:225–7. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Ryan J, Zwerling C, John E. Occupational risks associated with cigarette smoking: A prospective study. Am J Publ Health. 1992;82:29–32. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Wells S, Macdonald S. The relationship between alcohol consumption patterns and car, work, sports and home accidents for different age groups. Accid Anal Prev. 1999;31:663–5. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Niedhammer I, Bugel I, Goldberg M, Leclerc A, Gueguen A. Psychosocial factors at work and sickness absence in the Gazel cohort: a prospective study. Occup Environ Med. 1998;55:735–41. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Smith L, Folkard S, Poole CJ. Increased injuries on night shift. Lancet. 1994;344:1099–100. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Harrell WA. Perceived risk of occupational injury: control over pace of work and blue-collar versus white-collar work. Percept Mot Skills. 1990;70:1351–9. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Saha A, Kumar S, Vasudevan DM. Factors of occupational injury: A survey in a chemical company. Ind Health. 2008;46:152–7. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Sampaio RF, Martin M, Artazcoz L, Moncada S. Occupational accidents in Barcelona (Spain), from 199 to 1993. Rev Saude Publica. 1998;32:345–51. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Morris JA. Injury experience of temporary workers in a manufacturing setting: Factors that increase vulnerability. AAOHN J. 1999;47:470–8. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Khosravi J, Hashemi Nazari SS, Dehghani Fard S, Jabbari K. Evaluation of occupational accidents leading to death in workers of emarat service contractors and urban green spaces of Tehran in 2004 and 2005. Journal of Forensic Medicine. 2007;13(2):68–77. [Google Scholar]
Colak B, Etiler N, Bicer U. Fatal occupational injuries in the construction sector in Kocaeli, Turkey, 1990–2001. Ind Health. 2004;42(4):424–30. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Halvani Gh, Aminipour MR. Survey of work events in factories of social securing organization in Yazd City. Toloe Behdasht Magazine. 2004;2:9–17. [Google Scholar]
Colao AM, Pisciottano V, Giampaoletti C, Cenci G. Occupational accidents among immigrant workers in the Fabriano areas. Med Lav. 2006;97:787–98. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Candela S, Duca P, Bedogni L. The cases of accident in the ceramic tile industry in relation to the age and job seniority of the workers. Med Lav. 1993;84:217–25. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Bhattacherjee A, Maiti J. New look into the Quantitative analysis of mine safety studies. Transactions of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy, exploration, Ins (USA) 2000;308:1–8. [Google Scholar]
Barreto SM, Swerdlow AJ, Schoemaker MJ, Smith PG. Predictors of first nonfatal occupational injury following employment in a Brazilian steelworks. Scand J Work Environ Health. 2000;26(6):523–8. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Yager JW, Kelsh MA, Zhao K, Mrad R. Development of an occupational illness and injury surveillance database for the electric energy sector. Appl Occup Environ Hyg. 2001;16(2):291–4. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Sorock GS, Lombardi DA, Hauser RB, Eisen EA, Herrick RF, Mittleman MA. A case-crossover study of occupational traumatic hand injury: methods and initial findings. Am J Ind Med. 2001;39(2):171–9. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Prezant DJ, Freeman K, Kelly KJ, et al. Impact of a design modification in modern firefighting uniforms of burn prevention outcomes in New York City firefighters. J Occup Environ Med. 2000;42(8):827–34. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Knowledge Kingdom Publishing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.