[Fitness to work and diabetes in health care workers].
Diabetes mellitus is a disease of great social relief that has a deep impact also in working life. Our short paper wants to highlight some critical aspects that occupational physician must deal with both in preventive and periodic health evaluation for diabetic subjects. In our study, performed on health care workers, we reported 16 cases of diabetes; 10 of them were nurses, 5 sanitary auxiliaries and 1 sanitary technical operator. The judgment has been of full suitability to the specific task for 7 subjects, whereas for 4 workers it has been stated suitability with limitation for problems related with diabetes or its complications. The judgment with limitation for the other 5 subjects was due to pathologies not related with diabetes. The shift work, and mainly the night shift, is the risk that diabetic subjects cannot effort when the disease is not sufficiently compensated. The small number of diabetic workers, 16 over 1994 visited (0.8%), suggests for a spontaneous choice of diabetic people towards other kind of work without shift risk.
Mattei
O
O
Istituto di Medicina del Lavoro, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, L.go Francesco Vito 1, 00168 Roma. omatte@tin.it
Di Martino
T
T
Ferraro
P
P
D000328:Adult; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation