Effects of health care workers's exposure to psychosocial risk factors on occupational accidents in a university hospital

Introduction and Aim: Occupational accident is one of the most important risk affecting workers health. Healthcare workers are at risk in terms of occupational accidents and psychosocial risk factors. The aim of this research was to establish the effects of psychosocial risk factors on occupatinal accident in the units with high risk of occupational accident. Method: The research was cohort type and it was carried out in two stages. We evaluated workers' exposure to psychosocial risks firstly and then workers were followed up 6 months for an occupational accident. The dependent variable was ''having an occupational accident during 6 months follow-up period''. The main independent variable was ''exposure to psychosocial risk factors''. The other independent variables were socioeconomic characteristics (age, sex, educational status, marrital status, income perception), work characteristics (job, working unit, weekly working hour, total working time in the hospital, type of work shift) and health status (having a chronical disease, having a psychiatric disease, receiving a psychiatric treatment. Descriptive finding were presented by percentage, mean (standart deviation) and median (interquartile range). Mann Whitney U test, Pearson Chi-Square Test, Fisher's Exact Test, Kaplan-Meier Survival Analysis and Cox Regression Analysis were used for data anaylsis. p value lower than 0.05 was accepted level for significance. Results: 277 of the 353 workers who were working at the selected units participated in the research (response rate=78.5%). 8 workers were excluded from follow-up because their data was inappropriate for analysis. The frequency of work accidents reported during the 6-month follow-up period was 10.0% (n = 27). It has been found that working in the blood collection unit and lack of freedom at work increase the risk of having an occupational accident. Conclusion: Strategies to increase occupational accident reporting should be developed. In planning for the prevention of occupational accidents, the working units and psychosocial risk exposure should be considered. Keywords: occupational accident, psychosocial risk factors, health care workers' health, COPSOQ