Risk of injury after evening and night work – findings from the Danish Working Hour Database

May 20, 2018Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health

Injury risk after working evening and night shifts from the Danish Working Hour Database

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Abstract

Risk of injury increased by 32% after a week of evening work and 33% after night work compared to day work.

Evening work is associated with an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.32 for injury compared to day work.
Night work is associated with an IRR of 1.33 for injury compared to day work.
Among evening workers, the risk of injury is still elevated with an IRR of 1.18 when compared to their own prior evening work.
Night workers also show an increased risk, with an IRR of 1.10 compared to their own previous night work.
The findings suggest that evening and night work may contribute to higher injury risks, even after accounting for potential confounding factors.

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Objectives Evening and night work have been associated with higher risk of injury than day work. However, previous findings may be affected by recall bias and unmeasured confounding from differences between day, evening and night workers. This study investigates whether evening and night work during the past week increases risk of injury when reducing recall bias and unmeasured confounding. Methods We linked daily working hours at the individual level of 69 200 employees (167 726 person years from 2008-2015), primarily working at hospitals to registry information on 11 834 injuries leading to emergency room visits or death. Analyses were conducted with Poisson regression models in the full population including permanent day, evening and night workers, and in two sub-populations of evening and night workers, with both day and evening or night work, respectively. Thus, the exchangeability between exposure and reference group was improved in the two sub-populations. Results Risk of injury was higher after a week with evening work [incidence rate ratio (IRR) 1.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.26-1.37] and night work (IRR 1.33, 95% CI 1.25-1.41) compared with only day work. Similar, although attenuated, estimates were found for evening work among evening workers (IRR 1.18, 95% CI 1.12-1.25), and for night work among night workers (IRR 1.10, 95% CI 1.01-1.20). Conclusion There is an overall increased risk of injury after a week that has included evening or night work compared with only day work. Though attenuated, the higher risk remains after reducing unmeasured confounding.

Risk of injury after evening and night work – findings from the Danish Working Hour Database

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