Discrepancy between workplace injuries and content of first aid manuals: a comparative analysis

Employee training in first aid techniques (mandatory pursuit to the Ministry of Health Decree of 15 July 2003, n. 388), is a key element in ensuring the proper application of first aid and "chain of survival" techniques for time-sensitive injuries. Learning how to deal effectively with emergency situations, both in the workplace and at home, can save lives or reduce the severity of the consequences of injuries. As training support, manuals are often available which illustrate all the maneuvers that may be necessary implement during first aid, and which aren’t specific to the type of work foreseen in each workplace. The study examines some workplace first aid manuals to analyze their contents compared to the importance given to each type of injury (expressed as a text percentage into the manual) with average general data found for different activities on workplace injuries. The results show a discrepancy between the manuals contents and accident types recurrency in the various production sectors. Specifically, topics such as lacerations, contusions, dislocations, sprains, and fractures are covered significantly less in first aid manuals compared to the frequency of occurrence of these types of injuries in the workplaces. On other words, there is often an emphasis on Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) maneuvers, anatomical loss and foreign body obstruction (generally referred to as choking and drowning in the manuals) than they are in actual incidents, describing in a more concise manner other traumas which, however, appear to be more recurrent in the workplace, such as fractures, wounds, bleedings, burns (thermal and chemical) and other types of specific trauma related to works carried out in the workplaces. This research highlights the need to align the content of first aid manuals with the actual occurrence of injuries to improve the effectiveness of first aid manuals with the actual occurrence of typically injuries in each specific production sector to improve the effectiveness of first aid interventions in these workplaces.