Occupational Disease and Injury in Malaysia: A Thematic Review of Literature from 2016 to 2021.

Introduction: Working people are exposed to occupational hazards and are at risk of having occupational disease or injury in a rapidly industrializing country like Malaysia. This study aims to review and summarize the occupational disease and injury in Malaysia from 2016 to 2021. Methods: This study used PubMed and Scopus databases to conduct a systematic literature search using a set of keywords. The selected records dated from 1 January 2016 to 8 September 2021 were extracted into the Mendeley Desktop and ATLAS.ti 8 software. Systematic screening was conducted by two independent researchers and finalized by the third researcher. Data were coded and grouped according to the themes. The results were presented as the table for descriptive analysis and cross-tabulation between the themes. Results: A total of 120 records were included in this study. Under the theme of main health problems, the findings showed that mental health, infectious disease, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders are the top three problems being discussed in the literature for the working people in Malaysia. The findings also showed an increasing trend of mental health problems during pandemic COVID-19 years. In addition, hospital was the highest workplace where the occupational health problems were reported.Discussion/Conclusion. There was substantial work on the mental health problem, infectious diseases, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders as the main health problem among workers in Malaysia in the past five years. The employers must report any occupational health and injury case to the authority and prompt intervention can be initiated.

Occupational Disease and Injury in Malaysia: A Thematic Review of Literature from 2016 to 2021

Introduction Working people are exposed to occupational hazards and are at risk of having occupational disease or injury in a rapidly industrializing country like Malaysia. This study aims to review and summarize the occupational disease and injury in Malaysia from 2016 to 2021. Methods This study used PubMed and Scopus databases to conduct a systematic literature search using a set of keywords. The selected records dated from 1 January 2016 to 8 September 2021 were extracted into the Mendeley Desktop and ATLAS.ti 8 software. Systematic screening was conducted by two independent researchers and finalized by the third researcher. Data were coded and grouped according to the themes. The results were presented as the table for descriptive analysis and cross-tabulation between the themes. Results A total of 120 records were included in this study. Under the theme of main health problems, the findings showed that mental health, infectious disease, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders are the top three problems being discussed in the literature for the working people in Malaysia. The findings also showed an increasing trend of mental health problems during pandemic COVID-19 years. In addition, hospital was the highest workplace where the occupational health problems were reported.Discussion/Conclusion. There was substantial work on the mental health problem, infectious diseases, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders as the main health problem among workers in Malaysia in the past five years. The employers must report any occupational health and injury case to the authority and prompt intervention can be initiated.

Stress status of healthcare drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

IntroductionThe pandemic of COVID-19 has brought a disastrous impact on every single aspect of human life and activities. The economic and health sectors are most affected by restriction on public movement, daily activities, and burden of coronavirus infection through increased infection and hospitalisation rate. Most research focused on front liners but they overlooked ambulance and healthcare drivers.ObjectivesTo determine the stress status of healthcare drivers in Malaysia and its associated factors during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 163 healthcare drivers in Negeri Sembilan State Health Department, Malaysia, using self-reported validated questionnaires.ResultsA majority of healthcare drivers were male (100%), married (90.1%) with their highest education consisting of a high school certificate (90.1%). Ethnically, they consisted of Malay (95.7%), Indian (3.7%) and Chinese (0.6%). Three out of ten healthcare drivers were ambulance drivers, while the rest were non ambulance drivers. The prevalence of stress among healthcare drivers was 7.4% (95% CI: 3.7, 11.7). Higher prevalence was found among ambulance drivers compared to non ambulance drivers;10.6% and 6.0% respectively. There was a significant association between stress and smoking status, performing on-call and duration of working hours in a similar unit.ConclusionThe study revealed that there was a low prevalence of stress among healthcare drivers in Malaysia during the pandemic. The reduced life threatening tasks, fewer emergency incidents and lesser assigned tasks throughout the movement control order during the COVID-19 pandemic could have contributed to the low prevalence statistics among the healthcare drivers in Malaysia. In addition, the effort by the Occupational and Environmental Health Unit, Negeri Sembilan State Health Department in providing consistent safety and health training including stress management might have assisted healthcare drivers to cope with the stressed situation both mentally and physically.