Acute occupational exposures reported to the Dutch Poisons Information Center: a prospective study on the root causes of incidents at the workplace

Table 3 Most important root causes of occupational exposures reported by the interviewed patients (n = 310)

Root causes	N	%
Technical
Damaged packaging	74	23.9%
Defective apparatus	30	9.7%
Organizational
No work instruction	137	44.2%
Poor communication, planning	97	31.3%
Personal
Fatigue, inaccuracy, time pressure, etc.	155	50.0%
Disregarded work instruction	41	13.2%
PPE obligatory, but not used
Safety glasses^a	30	9.7%
Protective gloves	6	1.9%

PPE Personal Protective Equipment
^a30 patients did not wear safety glasses, however 3 of them wore a face shield and 5 normal glasses. A face shield was used in all patients in which this was obligatory (n = 11)

ISSN: 1745-6673