Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can be diagnosed as occupational disease by an occupational health physician (OHP), if supported by relevant work-related and medical documentation. The aim of this study was to analyse such documentation submitted by Croatian healthcare workers (HCWs) and discuss its relevance in view of European and Croatian guidelines. The study included 100 Croatian HCWs who were SARS-CoV-2-positive and requested that their infection be diagnosed as occupational disease by their OHPs from 1 May 2020 to 10 March 2021. As participants they were asked to fill out our online Occupational COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers Questionnaire. For the purpose of this study we analysed answers about the type of close contact at the workplace, COVID-19 symptoms, and enclosed work-related (job description, employer statement about exposure to SARS-CoV-2) and medical documentation (positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test and patient history confirming the diagnosis of COVID-19). Most participants were working in hospitals (N=95), mostly nurses (N=75), who became infected by a patient (N=68) or colleague (N=31), and had at least one COVID-19 symptom (N=87). Eighty participants did not enclose obligatory documents, 41 of whom failed to submit job description and 31 both job description and employer statement. These findings confirm that the major risk of occupational COVID-19 in HCWs is close contact with patients and colleagues, and points out the need for better cooperation between OHPs, occupational safety experts, employers, and diseased workers.
Specijalist medicine rada može dijagnosticirati koronavirusnu bolest 2019 (COVID-19) kao profesionalnu bolest uz potrebnu radnu i medicinsku dokumentaciju. Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je analizirati dokumentaciju koju su predali hrvatski zdravstveni djelatnici i raspraviti njezin značaj iz perspektive europskih i hrvatskih smjernica. U istraživanje je bilo uključeno 100 hrvatskih zdravstvenih djelatnika koji su bili pozitivni na SARS-CoV-2 i koji su od 1. svibnja 2020. do 10. ožujka 2021. zatražili od mjerodavnih specijalista medicine rada da im se infekcija dijagnosticira kao profesionalna bolest. Kao sudionici istraživanja ispunili su virtualni upitnik Profesionalna bolest COVID-19 u hrvatskih zdravstvenih djelatnika. Analizirali smo odgovore o vrsti bliskoga kontakta na radnome mjestu, simptomima bolesti COVID-19 i predanoj radnoj (opis poslova, izjava poslodavca o izloženosti SARS-CoV-2) i medicinskoj (pozitivan test lančane reakcije polimeraze na SARS-CoV-2, povijest bolesti kojom se potvrđuje dijagnoza COVID-19) dokumentaciji. Većina sudionika radila je u bolnici (N=95), i to većinom sestre (N=75), koje je zarazio pacijent (N=68) ili suradnik (N=31), i imali su barem jedan simptom bolesti COVID-19 (N=87). Osamdeset sudionika nije predalo obveznu dokumentaciju, od kojih 41 nije predao opis poslova, a 31 ni opis poslova ni izjavu poslodavca. Ovi rezultati potvrđuju da najveći rizik od profesionalne bolesti COVID-19 u zdravstvenih djelatnika proizlazi iz bliskoga kontakta s pacijentima i suradnicima te ističu potrebu za boljom suradnjom između specijalista medicine rada, stručnjaka za zaštitu na radu, poslodavaca i oboljelih radnika.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; asimptomatska infekcija; asymptomatic infection; guideline; job description; medicinske sestre; nurses; opis poslova; smjernica.
© 2021 Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, published by Sciendo.