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  • Longitudinal association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries in industrial settings by presence/absence of depressive symptoms in a nationally representative sample of workers in Japan

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Workplace
Original research
Longitudinal association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries in industrial settings by presence/absence of depressive symptoms in a nationally representative sample of workers in Japan
  1. Takashi Yamauchi1,
  2. Kunihiko Takahashi2,3,
  3. Machi Suka1,
  4. Takeshi Sasaki4,
  5. Masaya Takahashi4,
  6. Toru Yoshikawa4,
  7. Hiroto Okoshi1,
  8. Shigeo Umezaki5,
  9. Hiroyuki Yanagisawa1
  1. 1 Department of Public Health and Environmental Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
  2. 2 Department of Biostatistics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
  3. 3 M&D Data Science Center, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan
  4. 4 Research Center for Overwork-Related Disorders, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Kawasaki, Japan
  5. 5 National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Kiyose, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Takashi Yamauchi, Department of Public Health and Environmental Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo 105-8461, Japan; yamauchi-t{at}jikei.ac.jp

Abstract

Objectives The association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries has yet to be investigated longitudinally. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal association between near-misses/minor injuries and moderate/severe injuries by the presence/absence of depressive symptoms using 1-year follow-up data obtained from a nationally representative sample of workers in Japan.

Methods Of the 18 231 eligible participants at time 1 (T1), 12 127 who responded to the 1-year follow-up survey at time 2 (T2) (response rate: 66.5%; 4370 females and 7757 males; mean age (SD), 45.3 (10.5) years) were included in the analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed with the presence/absence of moderate/severe injuries at T2 as the dependent variable.

Results In total, 36.4% of participants reported depressive symptoms at T1. During the follow-up period, 1.6% of participants reported moderate/severe injuries in industrial settings. After adjusting for relevant variables, participants who reported near-misses (OR=1.7 (95% CI, 1.3 to 2.4)) and minor injuries (OR=2.5 (95% CI, 1.3 to 4.7)) at T1 were more likely to have moderate/severe injuries at T2 compared to those who reported no near-misses/minor injuries. However, this association was stronger in participants who did not have depressive symptoms at T1 than in those who had depressive symptoms.

Conclusions While the predictive value of near-misses/minor injuries for the occurrence of moderate/severe injuries by the presence/absence of depressive symptoms should be cautiously interpreted, our findings suggest that the development and utilisation of near-miss/minor injury reporting systems may help reduce the likelihood of moderate/severe injuries among workers, especially those without depressive symptoms.

  • injury
  • longitudinal studies
  • epidemiology
  • health and safety

https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2020-106460

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors TY, KT, MS, TS, MT, TY, SU and HY designed the study. TY, KT, MS and HO collected and analysed the data. TY prepared the first draft of the manuscript. KT, MS, TS, MT, TY, HO, SU and HY interpreted the data and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding This work was supported by Industrial Disease Clinical Research Grants from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (180901-01).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of the Jikei University School of Medicine (No. 30-153(9174)).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement No data are available. The data cannot be shared publicly as they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants, based on the 'Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research involving Human Subjects' set forth by the Japanese government. Under these guidelines, in principle, institutional review boards in Japan do not allow researchers to publicly share data obtained from human subjects with a third party. Accordingly, in the application requesting ethical approval for the present study to the institutional review board of the Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan, we declared that the present study would be conducted under the condition that only researchers approved by the review board at the time of the ethical application can access the data set. Upon reasonable request from a third party, the corresponding author, TY (E-mail: yamauchi-t@jikei.ac.jp), will consult with the review board (E-mail: rinri@jikei.ac.jp) regarding permission for data sharing.