title: Investigation of the working behavior of part-time occupational physicians using practical recording sheets.
abstract: We investigated the working behavior of part-time occupational physicians using practical recording sheets to clarify issues of occupational physicians' activities according to industrial groups or size of business.
  
  
  
  We collected 561 recording sheets in 96 industries from 11 part-time occupational physicians as collaborators, who volunteered to be a part of this research. We collected a variety of information from the practical recording sheets, including the industry in which each occupational physician was employed, the annual number of times of work attendance, occupational physician-conducted workplace patrol, and employee health management. We investigated their annual practices regarding work environment management, work management, health management, and general occupational health management. In addition, we analyzed the differences between the secondary and tertiary industry groups and between the group of offices employing 100 people or fewer (≤100 group) and 101 people and above (≥101 group) in each industry group.
  
  
  
  The median work attendance by all occupational physicians was four times a year; the tertiary industry group had a significantly lower rate of work attendance than the secondary industry group. The occupational physicians' participation in risk assessment, mental health measures or overwork prevention, and the formulation of the occupational health management system and the annual plan were significantly lower in the tertiary industry group than in the secondary industry group. We observed that for the annual number of times of work attendance, occupational physician-conducted workplace patrol was significantly lower in the ≤100 group than in the ≥101 group in each industry group.
  
  
  
  These findings show that occupational physicians' activities have not been conducted enough in tertiary industries and small-sized offices employing ≤100 people. It would be necessary to evaluate how to provide occupational health service or appropriate occupational physicians' activities for small-sized offices or tertiary industries. Thereafter, it would likely be beneficial to construct a system to support the activities of part-time occupational physicians as well as the activity of occupational health at workplaces.
authors.affiliation: Department of Works Systems and Health, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health.
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ikegami
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nozawa
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Michii
authors.forename: Ryosuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sugano
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.forename: Hiroko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kitamura
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ogami
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior; D019992:Databases as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D054538:Occupational Health Physicians; D009786:Occupational Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling; D014937:Work / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000078329:Workforce