Use of the Self-Care Agency Appreciation Scale (ASA) as a predictor of occupational accidents in UNAN-Managua workers

Abstract

According to the International Labor Organization by its acronym ILO (2019), deaths attributable to occupational accidents and occupational diseases have increased to 2.78 million per year. Annually 374 million work-related injuries occur, with more than 4 days of absence from work, with an economic burden of 3.94% of the global Gross Domestic Product each year. In order to reduce the accident rate, the present observational, analytical, cross-sectional study was aimed at testing the usefulness of the Self-Care Appreciation Scale (ASA), the hypothesis being its value in the prognosis of occupational accidents among workers in the areas of the Quartermaster’s Office and the Design and Construction Division of UNAN-Managua. The universe was 151 workers and the sample was 91, to whom a survey was applied containing the characteristics of occupational accidents, the socio-labor determinants of the workers and the ASA scale score. It was observed that occupational accidents were more frequent in men, in ages <35 years and >45 years, under permanent contract, in machine operators. The type of contract and type of occupational accident had a statistically significant association (p= 0.05). The most frequent ASA level was the low level (53.8%). Female sex and number of training courses were statistically associated with the level of ASA (p=0.038). ROC curves were performed to obtain cut-off points showing the probability of occupational accidents. The cut-off point to discriminate workers who will suffer occupational accidents was 70 points, with a sensitivity of 54.8% and a specificity of 100%. It is concluded that the cut-off point of the ASA Scale for predicting workers in these areas who will suffer occupational accidents is 70 points with an AUC of 0.8, with greater usefulness for recognizing those workers who will not suffer occupational accidents.