The analysis of the relationship between Akdeniz University Hospital employees' annual periodic health examinations performed by occupational physician in 2019 and their health anxiety

Introduction and Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between hospital employees' occupational and individual periodic health examinations and their health anxiety. Material and Method: 360 hospital employees, who were followed up by Akdeniz University Hospital occupational physician, participated in this study. A research questionnaire consisting of 58 questions was applied to research participants. The analysis of the study was performed by IBM SPSS (Statistics Package Program for Social Sciences) version 24.0 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). Statistical significance level was accepted as p <0.05. Continuous variables were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Categorical data was expressed as numbers and percentages. During the analysis of continuous variables , the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Goodness of Fit Test which is normality analysis was performed. Since the data of continuous variables is not normally distributed, the Mann Whitney U Test was used for comparing the two groups, and the Kruskal Wallis Test was used for comparing the three groups and above. Chi-Square Test was used in the comparison of categorical data. Results: A total of 360 hospital employees participated in this study. Within the scope of this study, 66.9% of the participants are women and 33.1% of them are men. 56.9% of the participants stated that they had the periodic health examination performed by the occupational physician for occupational health and safety in 2019. 51.9% of the participants stated that they had a personal periodic health examination. 21.4% of the participants stated that they had a work accident. The Health Anxiety Inventory was applied to the participants. When the reliability coefficient was checked to determine the internal consistency of this scale, the Cronbach alpha was found as 0.82. In this study, the mean score of the health anxiety inventory is 15.8 ± 6.6 (min-max = 1-50) points. 62.2% of the employees participating in this study had occupational periodic health examination and 30% of them did not. When the relationship between periodic occupational health examination and health anxiety was examined, no statistically significant difference was found between health anxiety scores. Conclusion: Hospitals are the work environments with significant dangers and risks in terms of employees' health and safety. Periodic health examinations should be carried out regularly to protect healthcare workers from occupational accidents and diseases which may occur due to the risks they are exposed to. In this study, it was observed that the most important reason why healthcare workers did not have periodic health examinations was the lack of information. In this context, it is essential to increase the health screening rate of the healthcare workers by providing consultancy and trainings that will increase the level of awareness of them and create a change in behavior. In order to create a healthy and safe working environment, the level of protection of those workers' health can be increased by making the necessary legal regulations involving both public and private healthcare sectors. Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety, Periodic Health Examination, Health Anxiety Scale, Health Worker