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Occupational Medicine Advance Access published online on March 28, 2008
Occupational Medicine, doi:10.1093/occmed/kqn026
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Occupational injury among full-time, part-time and casual health care workers

Hasanat Alamgir, Shicheng Yu, Negar Chavoshi and Karen Ngan

Statistics and Evaluation Department, Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Background Previous epidemiological studies have conflicting suggestions on the association of occupational injury risks with employment category across industries. This specific issue has not been examined for direct patient care occupations in the health care sector.

Aims To investigate whether work-related injury rates differ by employment category (part time, full time or casual) for registered nurses (RNs) in acute care and care aides (CAs) in long-term facilities.

Methods Incidents of occupational injury resulting in compensated time loss from work, over a 1-year period within three health regions in British Columbia (BC), Canada, were extracted from a standardized operational database. Detailed analysis was conducted using Poisson regression modeling.

Results Among 8640 RNs in acute care, 37% worked full time, 24% part time and 25% casual. The overall rates of injuries were 7.4, 5.3 and 5.5 per 100 person-years, respectively. Among the 2967 CAs in long-term care, 30% worked full time, 20% part time and 40% casual. The overall rates of injuries were 25.8, 22.9 and 18.1 per 100 person-years, respectively. In multivariate models, having adjusted for age, gender, facility and health region, full-time RNs had significantly higher risk of sustaining injuries compared to part-time and casual workers. For CAs, full-time workers had significantly higher risk of sustaining injuries compared to casual workers.

Conclusions Full-time direct patient care occupations have greater risk of injury compared to part-time and casual workers within the health care sector.

Keywords      Acute care; care aides; casual worker; full time; long-term care; musculoskeletal injury; occupational injury; part time; registered nurses

Correspondence to: Hasanat Alamgir, Statistics and Evaluation Department, Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare, 301-1195 West Broadway, Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 3X5, Canada. Tel: +1 778 328 8013; fax: +1 778 328 8001; e-mail: hasanat{at}ohsah.bc.ca


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