ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Quality of life, which is induced as a completely evaluating system to reflect new healthy viewpoints and medical patterns, plays a key role in supplying traditional therapy and evaluating rehabilitation efficacy in occupational injury.OBJECTIVE : To analyze the effects of occupational injury on quality of life in mining area of Tongling, Anhui.DESIGN: Case contrast questionnaire, Logistic single factor analysis and multiple factors analysis.SETTING: Workers General Hospital of Tongling Nonferrous Metal Group; Mining Safety Office of Tongling Nonferrous Metal Company.PARTICIPANTS: A total of 234 subjects with occupational injury were selected from four subgroups of Tongling Nonferrous Metal Company from January 2000 to December 2005 and regarded as the occupational injury group.Injured grade was evaluated by the department of safety in production. In addition, 206 employees of the same sex were regarded as the control group. All subjects provided the confirmed consent.METHODS: Questionnaires were finished in December 2006. Besides those whose educational level was lower than primary school or illness state was severe, their questionnaires were filled by somebody else through asking the feelings,and other subjects filled in the questionnaires by themselves. ① Social demography characteristics were surveyed in the two populations. ② The World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-100 (WHOQOL-100), which was characterized by excellent reliability, validity and sensitivity, was used to survey influencing factors (sex, age, occupation,educational level, marriage, smoking, drinking, pay, type of work in production, grade of occupational injury, injured site and type, other diseases, average income of per family member, housing area of per family member, accidental types,character styles, sleeping status, etc.) and various dimensions reflecting quality of life [physiological function (body ache,vigor, sleeping), mental state (well-being feels, confidence, and other three aspects), independence (daily living ability,work ability, and other two aspects), social relationship (interpersonal relation, social communication, and other one spect), material life (reliability, housing environment, and other eight aspects) and faith (individual faith)]. There were 24 aspects and every aspect included four items; in addition, there were 4 items in general healthy status. Therefore, there were 100 items in total. LinearitY method was used to score each item (from 1 tc 5 points). Self-scored quality of life had only one item, which was scored based on hundred-mark system. ③ Quality of life of subjects in the occupational injury group was analyzed with one-way analysis of variance. Variously dimensional indexes of quality of life in 6 fields were regarded as dependent variance, and effect factors were regarded as independent variance. The data were analyzed with multiple stepwise regression analysis.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: ① Characteristics of social demography; ② scores of variously dimensional indexes of quality of life; ③ correlation between quality of life and effect factors in occupational injury group.RESULTS: All 234 patients in the occupational injury group and 206 subjects in the control group were involved in the final analysis. ① There were no significant differences in sex, age, occupation, educational degree, working duty,marriage, drinking, smoking, pay, having other diseases and occupational types between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05). ②Scores of physiological field, independence field and total quality of life were lower in the occupational injury group than those in the control group (P ＜ 0.05). ③ Effect factors on quality of life in the occupational injury group contained intoxication and asphyxia; ankle, foot and cranial injuries; avulsed wound and task degrees. Multiple factor analysis demonstrated that quality of life of patients in the occupational injury group was affected by waist injury, pay level and relationship with colleagues and family member.CONCLUSION: Quality of life is inferior in the occupational injury group to that in the control group. The effect factors are mainly focus on injured sites, accident and injured types, economic status and relationship with society and family member.