Detection rate of occupational diseases in public health employees according to results of medical inspections

Introduction. This article presents the results on the detection rate of occupational diseases (OD) among health workers for an 18-year period (2000–2017) in the North-West Federal District (NWFD).

The purpose of the study is to study the structure and dynamics of occupational diseases in medical workers during periodic medical examinations, to assess the effectiveness of the system of periodic medical examinations (PME), and to suggest ways to improve their effectiveness.

Material and methods. A retrospective analysis of archival data from 2000–2017 was performed on occupational morbidity of health care workers according to the materials of the North-West Scientific Center for Hygiene and Public Health and regional centers of occupational pathology of subjects of the North-West Federal District (N = 259), the average age of the surveyed is 46.1 ± 11.8 years, of which 231 (89%) women, 28 (11%) men, 80 surveyed (30.9%) have the status of a doctor, 124 (47.9%) - nurses and 55 (21.2%) - laboratory technicians, nurses, etc.

Results. During the study period from 2000 to 2017 among the medical workers of the NWFD, 259 primary OD cases were officially identified. At the same time, the effectiveness of PME in medical workers was established to be very low. More than 7.2% of patients with OD signs were identified upon the fact that the patient actively sought medical attention. Even the system of clinical examination of the working population (where there is no explicit task to actively detect the OD signs) has a performance index by 3% higher than the PME.

Conclusion. The problem we have touched upon is probably related to a complex of both medical (features of the organization of the PME system) and social factors (subjective assessments of the patient with respect to the prospect of benefits or negative effects in terms of continuing their professional career after official registration of the OD) in order to establish more accurately long laborious research.