Low-voltage electrical accidents, immediate reactions and acute health care associated with self-reported general health 4 years later

Background and aims: Electricians frequently experience low-voltage electrical accidents. Some such accidents involve long-term negative health consequences. Early identification of victims at risk for long-term injury may improve acute medical treatment and long-term follow-up. This study aimed to determine acute exposure, health effects and treatment associated with general health >= 2 years after low-voltage electrical accidents.Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 89 male electricians who had experienced an electrical accident between 1994 and 2001 participated in a 2003 follow-up health examination. They were identified from a registry of low-voltage electrical accidents and included in the study. Based on exposure descriptions in the original accident reports, they were stratified into the following three groups: a current arc accident group (N = 34, mean age 38.8 years [standard deviation, SD = 12.2, range = 21-59]) and two groups with the passage of current through the body, either fixed to the current source (no-let-go group; N = 35, mean age 34.0 years [SD = 10.5, range = 21-57]) or not (let-go group; N = 20, mean age = 38.7 years [SD = 10.3, range = 21-63]). They retrospectively described acute reactions and assessed their current general health at the health examination. Multivariate linear regression, or-dinal logistic regression and Fisher's exact test were used to compare acute reactions with health at follow-up in each exposure group.Results: The multivariate analysis indicated that after accidents with the passage of cur-rent through the body, severe acute headache (beta = - 0.56, p = 0.013), years since the ac-cident (beta = - 0.16, p = 0.017) and the accident being perceived as frightening (beta = - 0.48, p = 0.040) were negatively associated with general health >= 2 years later (R2 = 0.25,

Automated summary

This study aimed to investigate the acute exposure, health effects, and treatment associated with general health >= 2 years after low-voltage electrical accidents among male electricians. It found that severe acute headache, years since the accident, and the perceived frightfulness of the accident were negatively associated with general health >= 2 years later.