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Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica

Supervised by three or four medical doctors and one nurse in rotating shifts, the medical clinic in Costa Rica’s Moín Container Terminal is open 24/7 for visits from port workers. In our study, we aimed to identify the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of a consecutive series of patients...

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Autores principales: Martínez, Alejandro, Jensen, Olaf C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859605/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36673879
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021124
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author Martínez, Alejandro
Jensen, Olaf C.
author_facet Martínez, Alejandro
Jensen, Olaf C.
author_sort Martínez, Alejandro
collection PubMed
description Supervised by three or four medical doctors and one nurse in rotating shifts, the medical clinic in Costa Rica’s Moín Container Terminal is open 24/7 for visits from port workers. In our study, we aimed to identify the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of a consecutive series of patients who attended the medical clinic for outpatient services during an 8-month period. Our descriptive study involved collecting patient records from the medical clinic during the first 8 months of 2021 (i.e., 1 January–31 August 2021), during which 3050 visits from 1301 port workers were registered. Terminal tractor drivers, crane operators, and stevedores were the most frequent job categories among the patients. Doping (i.e., ICD-10 Z03.6) was observed in 64% of the visits. The top ICD-10 codes among all other patients not observed to have engaged in doping (n = 469) were diseases of the musculoskeletal system (7.2%) and abnormal clinical and laboratory symptoms (6.2%). Problems with the musculoskeletal system were primarily back pain (36.0%), muscle contracture (30.1%), and secondary headache (25.2%). Two-thirds of the visits were due to screening for alcohol and drugs or doping; however, inconsistency in the coding system complicates the analysis of data, and a dropdown menu in the registration is therefore needed to prevent errors. Relative risk calculations are impossible due to a lack of data about the at-risk population but should be pursued under different circumstances in future studies. In the support chain of goods, the medical clinic in the port plays a key role in saving time in shipping, which means that the injured or sick employees in most cases can continue working. For the shipping industry, quick un- and offloading is very important to stay competitive in the market for transport.
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spelling pubmed-98596052023-01-21 Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica Martínez, Alejandro Jensen, Olaf C. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Supervised by three or four medical doctors and one nurse in rotating shifts, the medical clinic in Costa Rica’s Moín Container Terminal is open 24/7 for visits from port workers. In our study, we aimed to identify the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of a consecutive series of patients who attended the medical clinic for outpatient services during an 8-month period. Our descriptive study involved collecting patient records from the medical clinic during the first 8 months of 2021 (i.e., 1 January–31 August 2021), during which 3050 visits from 1301 port workers were registered. Terminal tractor drivers, crane operators, and stevedores were the most frequent job categories among the patients. Doping (i.e., ICD-10 Z03.6) was observed in 64% of the visits. The top ICD-10 codes among all other patients not observed to have engaged in doping (n = 469) were diseases of the musculoskeletal system (7.2%) and abnormal clinical and laboratory symptoms (6.2%). Problems with the musculoskeletal system were primarily back pain (36.0%), muscle contracture (30.1%), and secondary headache (25.2%). Two-thirds of the visits were due to screening for alcohol and drugs or doping; however, inconsistency in the coding system complicates the analysis of data, and a dropdown menu in the registration is therefore needed to prevent errors. Relative risk calculations are impossible due to a lack of data about the at-risk population but should be pursued under different circumstances in future studies. In the support chain of goods, the medical clinic in the port plays a key role in saving time in shipping, which means that the injured or sick employees in most cases can continue working. For the shipping industry, quick un- and offloading is very important to stay competitive in the market for transport. MDPI 2023-01-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9859605/ /pubmed/36673879 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021124 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Martínez, Alejandro
Jensen, Olaf C.
Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title_full Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title_fullStr Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title_full_unstemmed Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title_short Port Workers’ Use of Medical Services in a Maritime Container Terminal in Costa Rica
title_sort port workers’ use of medical services in a maritime container terminal in costa rica
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859605/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36673879
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021124
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