• Shlomo Moshe, Michal Shilo, Yaron Yagev, Doron Levy, Dan Slodownik, Gabriel Chodick, and Michael Levin.
• Occupational Medicine Department, Maccabi Healthcare Services, Holon, Israel. moshe_sh@mac.org.il
• Occup Med (Lond). 2008 Jan 1; 58 (1): 46-51.

BackgroundIncreasing efforts are being made to prevent sickness absence and to increase worker efficiency, including the use of costly pre-employment medical assessment of white-collar workers and labourers, excluding occupations for which medical supervision is required by law.AimTo investigate whether filling out an occupational health questionnaire (OHQ) as pre-employment assessment was more efficient than previously used protocols which included a physical examination and laboratory tests performed for each applicant.MethodsRetrospective study comparing three groups of job applicants: Group A--applicants examined by an occupational physician (OP); Group B--applicants examined by a general practitioner (GP) whose medical records were subsequently evaluated by an OP and Group C--the applicant filled out an OHQ which was evaluated by an OP.ResultsThe study included 1940 pre-employment assessments divided into groups A (618), B (256) and C (1066). The restriction rate was 2.1, 1.2 and 2.3%, respectively. The lowest restriction rate (1.4%) was among applicants 29 years old and younger and the highest one (3.6%) among 50 years and older. The most frequent diagnoses among restricted applicants were musculoskeletal and circulatory diseases (15 and 12%, respectively).ConclusionsThe restriction rate achieved by medical examinations either done by an OP (Group A) or by a GP (Group B) was the same as in OHQ (Group C). The use of a self-administered questionnaire evaluated by an OP is the preferred method of pre-employment evaluation for non-hazardous occupations.

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