Poisonings at the workplace

Abstract

The number of workers who run the risk of showing a poisoning originating from their work is high: more than a quarter of the workers in Spain find themselves exposed to chemical products at their work place, and around 17% handle such products directly. There are numerous chemical agents that can cause poisonings in the workplace; the majority of these clinical pictures receive health care in the public health service and often their origin in the workplace is not recognized. According to the official registers of occupational diseases, 3 out of every 100,000 workers develop diseases produced by chemical agents each year; these registers do not allow to know the real magnitude of the problem due to the underreporting of cases and to poisonings reported as occupational accidents. It is a priority to improve the quality of the registers and to establish systems of complementary declaration for the occupational poisonings that are treated in emergency consultations, primary and specialized care. Clinical cases of some workers who showed poisonings related to their working activity could help to increase awareness of this health problem in daily practice.