Risk Perception Among Workers With Previous Occupational Accidents in Pre-Hospital Settings

Abstract

Objective: to identify the risk perception of workers with previous occupational accidents in Mobile Emergency Care Services. Method: this quantitative and analytical study with a cross-sectional design was conducted with 265 professionals working in pre-hospital settings from 57 cities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. An online questionnaire addressed sociodemographic characteristics, previous occupational accidents and the workers’ occupational risk perceptions rated on a five-point Likert scale. The analysis included descriptive statistics, mean, standard deviation, median, and associations were verified using the Mann-Whitney test; the level of significance was established at p<0.05. Results: the occupational risks the workers more frequently reported were: exposure to blood (4.43); exposure to contaminated secretion/excretion (4.36); contact and handling of hygienization products (4.28); exposure to bacteria (4.25); lifting and transporting heavy loads (4.25); and exposure to viruses (4.23). A significant association was found between the risk perception of workers with previous occupational accidents and chemical (p=0.001), physical (p=0.006), ergonomic or psychological (p=0.000) risks, and accidents (p=0.000). Conclusion: association between the risk perception of workers who had previously experienced occupational accidents was significant, suggesting that workers may not identify or trivialize risks before they experience an accident. Therefore, actions are needed to encourage changes in behavior so that workers identify risks and prevent occupational accidents, such as adopting personal and collective protective equipment and improving the work conditions in pre-hospital settings.

Riscos ocupacionais existentes no atendimento pré-hospitalar móvel: Revisão integrativa

“…Com relação à percepção de riscos biológicos, os trabalhadores do Samu identificam-se como frequentemente expostos ao sangue, secreções/excreções contaminadas, vírus e bactérias 15 . Em estudo de reflexão sobre os riscos do trabalho em ambulâncias diante da pandemia de coronavírus, verificou-se que, por vezes, a equipe que socorre não sabe a real situação clínica do paciente, o que lhes pode gerar estresse e ansiedade, ou acarretar uma assistência insuficiente, negligente e que não atenda às reais necessidades da vítima devido aos riscos de contaminação 16 .…”

“…Trabalhadores do SAMU apresentaram associação estatisticamente significativa entre o risco de ruído excessivo e a ocorrência de acidentes de trabalho 15 . Quando o ruído no local de trabalho induz à perda de audição temporária ou permanente, é razoável esperar que isso também afete o desempenho psicoacústico por comprometer a percepção e a localização de sons ambientais, incluindo o reconhecimento de fala e de sinais de alerta.…”

Measuring and comparing the spatiotemporal evolution of accident hot spots

“…Typically, this method is used instead of the parametric unpaired t-test to compare two unpaired data groups. The rejection of the null hypothesis in the case of the Mann-Whitney test is proposed when there is no actual difference between the two groups of accident datasets and the p-value is equal to or less than the significance level (e.g., p ≤ 0.05) (Goulart et al, 2020;Kuo et al, 2017).…”