Three-year' experience of a tertiary level occupational diseases clinic

We aimed to evaluate the diagnosis of patients who applied on the first three years of our clinic, in order to contribute to the state of occupational diseases (OD) in Turkey.

The study is a cross-sectional study, between November 2013 and December 2016, 862 subjects were accepted for the evaluation. Gender, age, application ways, the reason of referral, workplace, exposure time and possible risks for the patients were evaluated through a file examination.

Total of 708 (82.1%) was male and 154 (17.9%) were female. The mean age of the subjects was 38.3 ± 7.7 years; the mean term of employment was 126.6 ± 87.3 (1-420) months. The most common cause of referral was the suspicion of occupational pulmonary diseases (64.3%) with 554 workers. 435 workers (50,6%) were diagnosed to have an OD, 78 workers (9.0%) were diagnosed with work-related diseases. The most common diagnoses of OD; 169 (38.9%) pneumoconiosis, 71 (16.3%) occupational asthma, 38 (8.7%) cervical disc hernia, 24 (5.5%) lumbar disc hernia, 24 (5.5%) hearing loss, 19 (4.3%) cubital/carpal tunnel, and 15 (3.4%) workers have lead intoxication.

Dust, chemicals, ergonomic risks and noise still remain as important occupational health risks in Turkey. It is seen that the existing occupational diseases monitoring system is inadequate to identify and manage the health problems of the workers. An effective and comprehensive occupational disease monitoring system should be established and legal regulations should be planned.