Characteristics of Workplace Injuries among Nineteen Thousand Korean Firefighters

Abstract

To determine the actual firefighter injury statistics in Korea, we conducted a survey on the nature of on-duty injuries among all male firefighters in Korea. We distributed questionnaires to all Korean male firefighters via email, and data from the 19,119 workers that responded were used for data analysis. The job types were categorized into fire suppression, emergency medical service (EMS) and officers. As estimated of age standardized injury prevalence per one thousand workers, 354 fire extinguishing personnel, 533 EMS workers, and 228 officers experienced one or more injuries during the previous 12 months. The odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of injuries was 1.86 (1.61–2.15) for fire suppression and 2.93 (2.51–3.42) for EMS personnel compared to officers after adjusting for age, marital status, smoking habit and career period. Age standardized absence days from work due to injuries per one thousand workers were 1,120, 1,337, and 676 for fire suppression, EMS and officers, respectively. Car accident (24.5%) was the most common cause and wound (42.3%) was the most common type of injuries. Our nationwide representative study showed that fire suppression and EMS workers are at greater risk of on-duty injuries compared to officers. We observed different injury characteristics compared to those reported in other countries.

A Profile of Injuries Sustained by Firefighters: A Critical Review

“…The final CAS detailing the methodological quality of each included study is listed in Table 4, along with the levels of evidence the studies provided and key study data (i.e., study aims and research design). Three studies were graded as being of ‘good’ methodological quality [19,27,28], twelve studies were graded as being of ‘fair’ methodological quality [5,14,16,17,18,20,29,30,31,32,33,34], and two studies were graded as being of ‘poor’ methodological quality [1,35]. Ranging from 20% [1] to 85% [19], the mean (± SD, standard deviation) CAS for methodological quality was 56.5% (±13.7%).…”

“…As noted in Table 4, of the 17 studies included in this review, 12 [1,5,14,16,17,18,20,28,29,32,34,35] were determined to constitute level III-2 evidence, due to their use of a retrospective cohort study design. The remaining five studies [19,27,30,31,33] were cross-sectional and were therefore deemed to constitute level IV evidence.…”

“…Of the included studies, 10 were conducted in the United States [1,14,17,18,27,28,29,30,33,35], 2 in Canada [5,16], 1 in each of Greece [31], Poland [32], Australia [20], and the Republic of Korea [19], and 1 was an international study assessing individuals from United Kingdom, Ireland, North America, Australasia, and mainland Europe [33]. Apart from one study published in Greek [31], all studies were published in English.…”

“…Three studies [14,29,34] collected data from workers’ compensation claims or reports, and the remaining studies [1,5,16,17,18,19,20,27,28,30,31,32,33,35] collected their data from injury databases, injury records filed by individual fire departments or surveys given to fire service personnel. The musculoskeletal injury prevalence was reported in 16 included studies [5,14,16,17,18,19,20,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,35] (Figure 2). The reported overall prevalence of musculoskeletal injury for fire fighters included in the studies reviewed varied from 9% [33] to 74.% [30], with no clear patterns evident based on particular population types or other contextual factors, for example, injury reporting processes.…”

“…Where a determination could not be made using title and abstract, the full text was obtained and compared to the above criteria. Injury definitions, although varied, were described in six of the included studies [5,16,17,18,19,20] but were absent in the remaining studies. For the purpose of this review, all studies which focused on injuries sustained by firefighters whilst on duty were included.…”