Personality self-representations of patients with hand injury, and its relationship with work injury.

This study compared the personality self-representations of 288 hand injured patients with those of 959 young people (15-25 years old) randomly selected from the general population (noted GP), and with those of 336 unemployed people of all ages in professional training (U) in Lorraine (north-eastern France). The relationship between patients' personality self-representations and injury was also investigated. Personality self-representations included 14 questions: in your own opinion are you sociable?, at ease with others?, serious?, careful?, dynamic?, optimistic?, worried?, irritable?, clumsy?, solitary?, organised?, ambitious?, do you have a sense of responsibility?, and many plans? The patients had similar self-representations to GP except for the items non clumsy (odds ratio adjusted on age and sex OR = 2.40, p < 0.05) and optimistic (OR = 1.70, but 0.05 < p < 0.10). The frequencies of non irritable, non clumsy and non solitary people were higher in patients than in the U group (OR about 2.40, p < 0.01). By contrast, the other items were more favourable for the U group except for the items sociable, organised and having many plans. Self-representation items were significantly related to some socio-demographic data. The work injured workmen having one or more previous work injuries during the last five years were more at ease with others than the other subjects. Among the work injured workmen who had had no previous work injury during this time, the people aged 29 or less (the highest risk age class) were more optimistic than the others (71% vs 49%, p < 0.05); a difference was also found for the items at ease with others, careful, dynamic, and non worried, but it was not significant possibly due to the small number of subjects. The sum of these five items differed between the two age groups (3.29 +/- 1.49 vs 2.55 +/- 1.68, p < 0.05). These simple items would provide an interesting approach in terms of personality which could explain in part the excess of work injuries in young people, though the work requirement still seemed to be the highest risk factor.