Critical study of the initial medical certificates of occupational accident declaration

The drafting of the initial medical certificate (IMC) is an innocuous act that can engage the responsibility of the certifier.

To evaluate the quality of the IMC and their compliance with the legal provisions and to develop good practice recommendations for the drafting of the occupational accident certificate.

An epidemiological, descriptive and retrospective study was conducted in the University Hospital Center Farhat Hached (Tunisia) based on the occupational accident certificates completed by physicians during a period of 12 months.

In our study, 241 certificates were collected. The number of the patient's ID card was mentioned in 12% of cases. The date of the accident was noted in almost all cases (99.6%). The date of certification was indicated in all the cases. The average number of days of permanent work incapacity was significantly higher among male patients (p = 0.015), married patients (p≤10⁻³), and night workers (p = 0.05) and significantly lower among doctors (p ≤ 10⁻³).

Our study showed that the quality of the initial medical certificate drafting suffered from several inadequacies. This may be related to the lack of training of doctors in forensic practice, hence the importance of reminding the rules of good practice.