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.
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 [
Needle stick injuries were common, but minor. They were the most frequent injury type in a teaching hospital in Midwestern [
Violence is another work safety problem in hospitals. One out of five European nurses had been a victim of patient violence [
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.
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 (
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.