Victimization and occupational accidents in the Pró-saúde study

The objective of this study is to investigate the association between victimization and the occurrence of occupational accidents. Sectional data obtained from phase 2 of a prospective study (Estudo Pró-Saúde) were collected for 3,572 participants <70 years of age. The history of occupational accidents was obtained using dichotomous questions (yes/no) for the following types of injuries: needle stick; perforation by other objects; cut or laceration; burn; electric shock; contusion or bruise; fracture, dislocation or distortion; and poisoning. Outcome was defined as the occurrence of at least one accident in the year before answering the self-reported questionnaire. The same period of recall was used for assessing history of victimization events. The association of victimization and work accidents was evaluated by multivariate generalized linear model (log-poisson), and the results expressed as adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) and their respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). After adjusting for sociodemographic variables, all investigates victimization events were positively associated with accidents. Witnessing of an aggression situation was the event more strongly associated to occupational accidents (PR=1.98, 95%CI= 1.67; 2.34). This study highlighted important information about the association between psychosocial characteristics and occupational accidents. This information might be used when defining strategies to prevent this important public health problem.