Return-to-Work Experiences in Ontario Policing: Injured But Not Broken.

PURPOSE: Police officers and others working in police services are exposed to challenging and traumatic situations that can result in physical and/or psychological injuries requiring time off work. Safely returning to work post-injury is critical, yet little is known about current return-to-work (RTW) practices in police services. This study examines RTW practices and experiences in police services from the perspective of RTW personnel and workers with physical and/or psychological health conditions. METHODS: We used a purposive sampling approach to recruit sworn and civilian members from several police services in Ontario, Canada. The recruited members had experienced RTW either as a person in a RTW support role or as a worker with a work-related injury/illness. We conducted and transcribed interviews for analysis and used qualitative research methods to identify themes in the data. RESULTS: Five overarching themes emerged. Two pointed to the context and culture of police services and included matters related to RTW processes, injury/illness complexity, the hierarchical nature of police organizations, and a culture of stoicism and stigma. The remaining three themes pointed to the RTW processes of accommodation, communication and trust-building. They included issues related to recovery from injury/illness, meaningful accommodation, timely and clear communication, malingering and trust. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings point to potential areas for improving RTW practices in police services: greater flexibility, more clarity, stricter confidentiality and reduced stigma. More research is needed on RTW practices for managing psychological injuries to help inform policy and practice.

Economic evaluation of occupational health and safety programmes in health care.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based resource allocation in the public health care sector requires reliable economic evaluations that are different from those needed in the commercial sector. AIMS: To describe a framework for conducting economic evaluations of occupational health and safety (OHS) programmes in health care developed with sector stakeholders. To define key resources and outcomes to be considered in economic evaluations of OHS programmes and to integrate these into a comprehensive framework. METHODS: Participatory action research supported by mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, including a multi-stakeholder working group, 25 key informant interviews, a 41-member Delphi panel and structured nominal group discussions. RESULTS: We found three resources had top priority: OHS staff time, training the workers and programme planning, promotion and evaluation. Similarly, five outcomes had top priority: number of injuries, safety climate, job satisfaction, quality of care and work days lost. The resulting framework was built around seven principles of good practice that stakeholders can use to assist them in conducting economic evaluations of OHS programmes. CONCLUSIONS: Use of a framework resulting from this participatory action research approach may increase the quality of economic evaluations of OHS programmes and facilitate programme comparisons for evidence-based resource allocation decisions. The principles may be applicable to other service sectors funded from general taxes and more broadly to economic evaluations of OHS programmes in general.

The impact of temporary employment and job tenure on work-related sickness absence.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the impact of temporary employment and job tenure on work-related sickness absence of 1 week or more. METHODS: A longitudinal analysis was undertaken of the time to work-related sickness absence from the start of a job using the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. The sample consisted of 4777 individuals who experienced 7953 distinct job episodes and 167 absences. There were 114,488 person-job-month observational units. The major variables of interest in this study were a variable identifying whether the job was temporary or permanent, and tenure on the job. RESULTS: Individuals in temporary jobs were as likely to have a work-related sickness absence as individuals in permanent jobs. Individuals with job tenure of 4-6 months were 64% less likely to have an absence than individuals with longer tenures. Individuals in a union were more likely to have an absence. Firm size was not associated with absence. CONCLUSIONS: Previous studies have suggested that temporary employment and job tenure are associated with work-related health risk exposures and the ability to take a sickness absence, but these studies have not considered the nature of the employment contract in a longitudinal framework. This analysis did not find temporary employment to be associated with differential absence rate after controlling for tenure, prior health status, and several other individual and job characteristics. Short tenure is negatively related to the probability of work-related sickness absence, union membership is positively related, and firm size is not related to this variable.

An evaluation of hospital discharge records as a tool for serious work related injury surveillance.

OBJECTIVES: To identify and describe work related serious injuries among sawmill workers in British Columbia, Canada using hospital discharge records, and compare the agreement and capturing patterns of the work related indicators available in the hospital discharge records. METHODS: Hospital discharge records were extracted from 1989 to 1998 for a cohort of sawmill workers. Work related injuries were identified from these records using International Classification of Disease (ICD-9) external cause of injury codes, which have a fifth digit, and sometimes a fourth digit, indicating place of occurrence, and the responsibility of payment schedule, which identifies workers' compensation as being responsible for payment. RESULTS: The most frequent causes of work related hospitalisations were falls, machinery related, overexertion, struck against, cutting or piercing, and struck by falling objects. Almost all cases of machinery related, struck by falling object, and caught in or between injuries were found to be work related. Overall, there was good agreement between the two indicators (ICD-9 code and payment schedule) for identifying work relatedness of injury hospitalisations (kappa = 0.75, p < 0.01). There was better concordance between them for injuries, such as struck against, drowning/suffocation/foreign body, fire/flame/natural/environmental, and explosions/firearms/hot substance/electric current/radiation, and poor concordance for injuries, such as machinery related, struck by falling object, overexertion, cutting or piercing, and caught in or between. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital discharge records are collected for administrative reasons, and thus are readily available. Depending on the coding reliability and validity, hospital discharge records represent an alternative and independent source of information for serious work related injuries. The study findings support the use of hospital discharge records as a potential surveillance system for such injuries.