52. Work-related injury by employment status among healthcare workers: Analyses from British Columbia, Canada (436)

Hasanat Alamgir, Statistics and Evaluation, OHSAH, Vancouver, Canada
hasanat@ohsah.bc.ca

Abstract:

Background:

Previous epidemiological studies have conflicting suggestions on the association of occupational injury risks with employment status across industries. Studies examining this specific issue for direct patient care occupations in the healthcare sector are scarce.

Aims:

This study compares all work-related injuries by employment status (part-time, full-time, or casual) for two study populations-registered nurses (RN) in acute care and care aides (CA) in long term care facilities.

Methods:

Incidents of occupational injury resulting in compensated time-loss from work, over a one 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 all injuries respectively were 7.4, 5.3, and 5.5 per 100 p-y (one p-y is equal to 1879.2 productive hours). Among the 2967 CAs, 30% worked full-time, 20% part-time, and 40% were casual workers. The rates of injuries were 25.8 among full-time, 22.9 among part-time, and 18.1 among casual workers. In multivariate models, having adjusted for age, gender, facility and health region, full-time RNs had significantly higher risk of sustaining all injuries compared to part-time and casual workers. For CAs, compared to their full-time colleagues, casual workers had significantly lower risk of sustaining injuries. The results were somewhat similar for MSI injuries.