Epidemiology and man-days loss in burn injuries amongst workers in an oil industry

This retrospective study, conducted at the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (Assam Oil Division) Hospital, Digboi, in a period of 5 yr amongst workers of IOC Ltd. (AOD) describes work-associated injuries. Out of 2320 cases of different types of injuries involving workers over this period, 820 (35.3%) occurred at the workplace. 1430 (61.6%) at home or other places and 70 (3.1%) occurred on way to the workplace. Burn injuries were found in 132 cases (5.8% of the total injuries), but constituted 12.6% of the accidents at the workplace. The majority of the other injuries were soft tissue injuries, including sprains 1288 (55.5%) and hand injuries 688 (29.5%). Major burns (above 20% BSB) were found only in 5 cases. The most common sites of involvement in minor burns were the hands (45 cases), the legs (35 cases) and face (20 cases) with the remaining involving the chest and abdomen. Scald injury was observed in 66/132 (50%) cases, contact burns in 13/132 (10%) cases, flame burns in 33/132 (25%) cases, chemical burns in 11/132 (8.3%), and electrical burns in 9/132 (7%) cases. Mortality was 1.5%. Working days lost (man-days loss) in burn injuries was found to be higher in comparison to other injuries of similar severity. Causation of industrial burns is discussed and importance of prevention of burns in industries has been emphasised.