Use of a short questionnaire in occupational health to advise on prevention priorities

Objective: To give a support to the opinions recorded during the workers' mandatory visits to their occupational physicians (OP) and show that this helps to build prevention strategies.
Method: A short form, recto-verso A4 sheet, questionnaire including validated items was filled up at the beginning of the visit of the worker to the OP between 1997 and 2010. Interviewees were chosen randomly and questionnaires were left anonymous. Items comprised physical, mental and global health and physical, mental and psychological difficulties at work. Liked/disliked work factors, sick leave, diseases, familial status and anthropometric recordings closed the questionnaire. The data were analysed with Statgraphics® (centurion) software.
Result: The study was carried out in a small city in a rural area, median number of workers by factory was 15. A total of 1363 workers (446 women, 917 men) answered voluntarily the questionnaire, only one refused. Mean time to filling was less than 5 minutes. General health is very good or good for 85% of workers. Physical component of health is significantly better than the psychological one. The results show in particular that: a) social relationships have a positive effect on well-being for some and a negative one for other workers, b) numerous causes of sickness absences are related to simple "fatigue", c) stress at work is related to answers at the questions on "what do you like and dislike in your work?", d) stress and difficulties at work have major effects on perception of decreased general health, e) a time trend analysis, from 1996 to 2010, shows a significant decrease of perceived work constrains and stress and a health improvement, f) in our study, health and physical and mental well-being are not affected by the professional categories, but physical and mental strains are. In addition, work stress is the highest in managers and in blue-collar workers.
Discussion/Conclusion: Due to the study location, its results are difficult to compare with those of larger industrial areas. However the questionnaire has at least 2 interests. The first one is to allow, by a fast viewing of the first answers, an immediate focus on the worker's main difficulties during the visit. The second one is to make the OP able to have a general knowledge about the working population, the workplace and the health problems in relation to work. This highlights the way of prevention. In our situations the most effective arguments were to improve worker recognition which could efficiently lower stress and consequently also health complains and sickness absenteeism. Unfortunately, in our case, the use of such data is limited by ethical reasons. Indeed, the small factory size makes difficult the use of individual results to support prevention at the factory level. However, in our every day OP practice, such results allow to objective work situations difficulties. They are a support for a longitudinal survey of the working populations and conditions even in a small sized organisation. Thus they can advise on prevention strategies based both on risk factors abatements and on workers perceptions and health complains.