Objective:

To determine the social and occupational characteristics of the occupational injuries reported to a Social Security hospital in Piura.

Methods:

A cross-sectional analytical study of a database of occupational injuries reported to “José Cayetano Heredia” Hospital in Piura, Peru, between 2010 and 2012 was performed. Characteristics of workers including job position, type of injury and repercussion were examined. The variable “immediate referral to a medical facility of the Social Security System” was used as dependent variable, considering as category of interest whether the first destination after an occupational injury was any outpatient clinic or medical facility. The non-adjusted (RP) and adjusted prevalence rates (aPR) were calculated with generalized lineal models, using the binomial family and log link function.

Results:

A total of 2251 occupational injuries were notified, with 59% (1317) of workers that went home as first destination after being injured. Most accidents occurred between 10 am and 12 pm. In the multivariate analysis, the blue collar workers and the accidents did not go immediately to the medical facility after the event in 24% (IC95%: 19-33%) and 36% (IC95%: 12-35%), respectively. However, injuries that were caused by physical agents had a rate of 25% (IC95%: 1-55%) of immediate referral to an outpatient clinic.

Conclusion:

According to the analyzed data, a high frequency of not-immediate report of occupational injuries to the hospital was found. This has to be taken into account by the authorities to improve this situation, which goes against the law.

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