Occupational injuries admitted to the Emergency Department

BACKGROUND We aimed to identify the characteristics, causes and rates of injuries associated with occupational accidents. METHODS Patients who presented to the Emergency Department due to injuries occurring as a result of occupational accidents were determined retrospectively. In occupational injuries, several parameters were evaluated, such as gender, occurrence mechanism, injury type, injury localization, severity score of the injury, and the type of profession. RESULTS The number of occupational injury admissions in the Emergency Departments of our two centers during 2006 was 1038. Mean age of the cases was 31.6 +/- 9.6. The most common mechanism of injuries was determined to be caught-in-machinery, at 31.5%, followed by blunt object injury (21.5%), fall from height (18.9%), penetrating-sharp object injury (17%), ocular foreign body (3.9%), and others. Isolated extremity injuries (74.2%) were the most common injury site, followed by multiple bodily injuries (8.5%), facial injuries (5.5%) and head-neck injuries (4.6%). While 90% of cases were discharged after treatment in the Emergency Department, 7% were referred to various departments for hospitalization. CONCLUSION In the majority of cases, patients with injuries associated with occupational accidents presented to Emergency Departments. Observations in Emergency Departments may help reveal details of occupational injuries and prevent workplace-related accidents.