Does employment in high risk professions relating to firefighters and emergency workers cause injuries that requires long hospitalization?

Abstract

Firefighters and emergency workers are exposed to increased injury risks. The objective of the paper was to find out if such activities cause injuries that require long hospitalization. The files of 137 firefighters in Littoral Mountainous County, Croatia, were examined as well as those of 120 emergency workers in the last decade. The results have shown that on average firefighters were treated in hospitals 1.33 days, and emergency workers 0.018 days, p = .019, p < .05. The firefighters' sick leave was longer, with a mean 63.91 days compared to emergency workers sick leave mean 22.90 days, but if two firefighters on long sick leave were excluded, the difference between two groups was not significant, p = .256, p > .05. While these injuries result in short hospitalizations time the sick leave time takes longer and requires extensive outpatient physical therapy that burden hospital system. Overall, the amount of medical care time to return these injured workers to duty is large, there is necessity of implementing innovative injury prevention programs.