Risco biológico na atividade policial: uma investigação da realidade enfrentada pelos policiais civis da Paraíba

Abstract

Workers' health encompasses a set of interdisciplinary practices, branching out in areas such as law, the environment, health, among others. Professional risk of the biological type is generally a well-studied factor for health workers, however, rather neglected for other categories, such as police officers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of accidental exposures of Police officers to biological hazards. An epidemiological survey was conducted with an inductive, quantitative, observational, analytical and cross-sectional approach. We used primary data obtained through the application of structured questionnaires. Participants were 230 civil police officers of the state of Paraíba, Brazil. The survey occurred between December 2018 and February 2019 in the police stations of the state of Paraíba. The obtained data were inserted and analyzed in a proprietary software named Ukuma, developed during the present research. Chi-square and point-biserial correlation tests were used. It was observed that 52.2% (n = 120) of the policemen interviewed stated that they had already suffered some type of biological work-related incident during their professional practice. Of these, 70% reported having suffered accidents more than once. The most frequent type of self-reported accident was contact with fungi (92.5%). 46.7% of related cases involved skin disruption, unprotected exchange of body fluids with non-intact skin or with mucosa. Almost half of the research participants (46.5%) reported contact with some biological fluid containing blood or itself. Hand and wrist were the regions of the body most involved in self-reported accidents. From the data obtained, we conclude that there is a high prevalence of accidental exposures among the civil police of the State of Paraíba and that there is no significant statistical relationship between these occurrences and any attribute of the socio-professional profile of the individuals interviewed.