Occupational Injury in the United Arab Emirates, Assessment Example

Data for this study was collected from the Al Ain Trauma Registry, which collected hospitalization information since 2003. Information for individuals that were seen in the emergency center for more than 24 hours was included for analysis in the study. Results were included for the dates ranging between March 2003 and April 2005. The patient information was searched to find records on “external causes

and type of incident; personal factors of age, sex, nationality and marital status; time of day; occupation and place of injury where available; nature of injury including anatomical location and severity score, and hospitalization duration” (Barss et al., 2009). An injury severity score (ISS) was calculated based on this information presented. This score was based on an already existing formula cited in the Abbreviated Injury Scale workbook. This score divides the body into different regions, assigning the injury of a score of 1 to 5, with 5 being the greatest injury and 1 being a less significant injury. Individual scores were counted together to create a total injury severity score that ranges from 1 to 75. All data analysis was conducted using the SPSS program. Response rate was not applicable for this study because it was a retrospective study that used database information for the analysis.

Overall, the article was strong because the method use achieved the goal of determining the epidemiology of occupational injury hospitalizations using a trauma registry. However, a weakness of this article is that associated causes could not be determined with regards to directionality because of the type of research method used. Another strength of the study is the sample size used. Using more than 600 patients helps the information gathered be more reflective of the overall patient population. A weakness is that this information does not account for traumatic injury that resulted from involvement in different occupations other than those examined here.

A limitation of this article is that it is challenging to use the percentages calculated here as true epidemiological facts to understand this population because of the sample size used. This is a good start and is likely reflective of the population being studied, but it would be valuable to examine the trauma severity over different periods of time and using more people to see what these numbers are like to have a better understanding of this statistic.

Based on the way that this information was presented, there is a lot of room to conduct additional research. Future studies should include an understanding of how different jobs are impacted by likelihood of trauma incident in addition to how workers and employers can help reduce the frequency of this. In addition, it would be helpful to gain this information for each specific job in each specific region to see if there are differences present based on these different variables. This information could be used in practice by the government to take steps to help determine laws that could be put in place to reduce the number of severe accidents that happen. However, first, it is important to conduct more studies of this kind to determine the exact extent of the problem so that based on this information, policies can be made that help people in these jobs. Last, more recent statistics should be examined because the information used appears to be outdated.

References

Barss, P., Addley, K., Grivna, M., Stanculescu, C., & Abu-Zidan, F. (2009). Occupational injury in the United Arab Emirates: epidemiology and prevention. Occupational medicine, 59(7), 493-498.