Determinants of Occupational Injury: A Case Control Study among Textile Factory Workers in Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Background. Occupational injuries pose major public health and socioeconomic developmental problems. However, efforts towards investigation of determinants among factory workers are very minimal in developing countries. Thus, this study aimed at to identify determinants of occupational injury among textile factory workers in Amahara regional state in Ethiopia. Methods. A case control study was done among 456 textile factory workers (152 cases and 304 controls). Self-reported data from workers and document review from factories clinics were used to ascertain occupational injury status within one-year period. Data was collected using pretested and structured questionnaire by trained data collectors. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to assess level significance. Results. Young age (<30 years) (AOR 1.90, 95% CI (1.22, 2.94)), male gender (AOR 2.54, 95% CI (1.58, 4.07)), health and safety training (AOR 1.85, 95% CI (1.17, 2.91)), sleeping disturbance (AOR 1.99, 95% CI (1.30, 3.04)), and job stress (AOR 2.25, 95% CI (1.15, 4.41)) were significant predictors of occupation injury. Conclusion. Lack of training, sleeping disturbance, and job stress increased the risk of occupational injury. So, providing basic health and safety training with special emphasis on younger and male workers, reducing stressors, and providing sleep health education were recommended. 1. Introduction An occupational injury is any physical injury condition sustained on a worker in connection with the performance of his or her work in the industry. Employed people in industries spend at least one third of a day at work which have a strong effect on their health and safety due to work and work-related injuries [1]. These occupational injuries pose a major public health and developmental problems which result in a serious health, social, and economic consequences on workers and their employers [2, 3]. Worldwide in 2005, an estimated of 250 million occupational injuries and 5.4 million deaths due to injuries occurred annually. From this, over 90 percent was in low- and middle-income countries where the greatest concentration of world’s workforce and low level of factories found [4]. This problem costs the world a loss of roughly 4% of the gross national product [5, 6]. Despite this, only 5 to 10 percent of the workforce in developing countries has access to some kind of occupational health and safety services [6]. Ethiopia has been a member state of International Labor Organization and signed conventions related to health and safety of factory workers since 1923. However, the