Analysis of injuries and deaths by trauma scores due to occupational accidents

BACKGROUND: This study was aimed to evaluate the injury characteristics, causes, results, and hospital charges in cases of occupational accidents that were reported to judicial authorities using trauma scores. METHODS: The study was performed after obtaining permission from the judicial authorities and approval from the local ethics committee. All occupational accident cases that were reported to the judicial authorities in Bolu Province between 2015 and 2019 were included in the study. The groups were compared with the Chi-Square test, Mann-Whitney U Test, and the Kruskal-Wallis Test. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: This study included 3599 cases. The majority of the cases (74.70%) were male, with a mean age of 34.90±10.50 years. Occupational accidents occurred most frequently between 8 and 16 h (n=1982; 55.10%), on Friday (n=595, 16.53%), in April (n=356; 9.89%), and in spring (n=971; 26.98%). Occupational accident-related death occurred in 29 cases (0.8%). The most common injury due to occupational accidents occurred in the food industry (n=1256, 34.90%). Blunt object injury (n=1112, 30.90%) was the most common type of occupational accident; and the upper extremity (n=2049, 54.93%) was the most common injury localization. The mean Abbreviated Injury Scale of the cases was 0.94±0.74, the mean Injury Severity Score (ISS) was 1.79±4.47, and the mean New-Injury Severity Score (NISS) was 2.11±5.28. The means of ISS and NISS were statistically significantly higher for males, life-threatening injuries, work accidents in the Construction and Agriculture-Forestry sectors, fall from height, traffic accidents, and caught-in-machinery. The total hospital charge was 1,351,339.10 TL and its average was 380.30±2418.90 TL. The mean of treatment costs was significantly higher in the agriculture-forestry and construction sectors. CONCLUSION: The evaluation of all occupational accidents that are submitted to the jurisdiction on a provincial basis may provide more useful information in the prevention of work accidents. The use of trauma scores in the evaluation of occupational accidents is a useful argument for understanding the sectors and injury types that cause severe trauma. Furthermore, trauma scores may be an important predictor of hospital costs.