Trends and Correlates of Occupational Injuries among Healthcare Workers at a Tertiary Care Center in Lebanon

Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at an increased risk of occupational injuries due to exposure to a multitude of hazards at work. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital employees worldwide worked in increasingly demand environments and often times under stressful conditions. In Lebanon, over the past five years, several events have occurred, including an unprecedented socio-economic crisis, a hospital workforce shrinkage, and the COVID-19 pandemic, that severely affected the level of hospital activity at a tertiary hospital. The study aims to determine the trends and correlates of HCWs occupational injuries and identify whether the fluctuations in levels of hospital activity affected injury rates. This is a retrospective longitudinal study that examines monthly injuries sustained by all HCWs at a tertiary hospital, the American University of Beirut medical center (AUBMC), over a period of 5 years from January 2018 to December 2022. The study examined incident report forms completed by HCWs and submitted to the Environmental Health, Safety, and Risk Management department (EHSRM) at AUB. The data was complemented by monthly objective workload measures and absenteeism data. Occupied beds, clinic visits and ED visits were excluded from the analysis for reasons related to the goodness-of-fit of the regression model. Admissions and procedures were included in the analysis. The total number of injuries reported was 2,291. The mean monthly injury rate was 1.68 per 100 EFTE, with an increased yearly trend. The findings showed that with each 1,000 additional procedures performed each month, the mean injury rate increases by 0.1081 or 6.34% (p-value = 0.002). Admissions were not statistically significant, despite a positive correlation with injury rate. The study provides an in depth understanding of the social factors and the changes in the workload in relation with injury trends. It offers valuable insights into suitable staffing and workload levels during times of crises, and can inform policies.