OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENTS AMONG CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS ASSISTED AT THE PUBLIC HEALTH SECTOR IN THE CITY OF RIBEIRÃO PRETO, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

Abstract

The existence of the infantile work is as old as the history of man. In Brazil this reality is masked because, hardly the minors victims of accidents and their relatives declare, the relation of the accident with the working activity, due to its illegality. On the other hand, the health professionals seem not to notice the connection between the work executed by the minor and the offenses to the health that he suffers. The aim of this research was to study the working conditions of the minor workers, that suffered work accidents (WA) and were assisted by the public service of health of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil. For that, the revision of the minor handbooks was used with WA assisted in the period of one year, it was sought to identify sex, age, occupation, type of WA, part of the body affected and agent cause of the accident. It was evidenced that of 1589 handbooks of 18 year-old minors, 56 had been identified as accident victims of work; 64.3% were boys with age varying from 11 to 17 years and 12.4 worked as «auxiliaries» of several services. 60.7% of the WA were of typical accidents, 51.8% of the minors had the superior members harmed MMSS; the most frequent causes of the WA were: contact with cutting-incisive materials (37.5%), followed by the accidents of traffic (19.7%) and falls, excess of exercises and rigorous movements (8.9% each one). It was concluded that in spite of the legal prohibition, the infantile work exists in the studied city, although there exists the sub - notification of accident, as noticed in the present study.