1. SRA AUS-NZ Conference 2017
Large animal related illness & injury to NZ veterinary students: Who is responsible for their safety?
Christopher Riley
Stuart Gordon, Ingeborg ten Houte de Lange, Sarah James, Danielle Guiver

2. Introduction Background Objectives
Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 New Zealand
Substantial risk to vets working with large animals (65%)
Few comparable population studies of students
Objectives
Investigate risk of injury & illness for vet students exposed to large animals
Develop evidence to underpin cultural change
“safe work” vs “safe vocational education & training”

3. Large animal training & exposure
Complete farm practical work
Introduction to clinical studies (SM2)
Farm practical training
(1 week)
Animal production, behaviour, welfare & handling (SM1)
4 weeks commercial diary farm
(2 calving)
3 weeks commercial sheep/ beef farm
Farm practical work
3 weeks equine stud/racing stable/ farrier
SA, Equine medicine & surgery (SM2)
Veterinary practical work - mixed (6 weeks)
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
Employment
Core rosters
Cattle health & production
SA, Equine medicine & surgery
Special topics
Rosters in veterinary practices
Spring calving (veterinary)
Veterinary practical work completion

4. Materials and methods Human research ethics Eligible population
currently enrolled BVSc students
Anonymous online survey
background, attitudes, experience
detail on most recent injury/illness
Risk of LA related injury/illness
Human factors framework
Data analysis
STUDENT
SOFTWARE  Protocols & Procedures
HARDWARE  Facilities Equipment
ENVIRONMENT  Location
LIVE WARE  Staff & Other Students Animals
This study followed the Human Research Ethics process required by the University of Adelaide.
University of Adelaide students enrolled in animal science, veterinary bioscience, and doctor of veterinary medicine were eligible for this study.
An anonymous retrospective survey was created to obtain the background demographics, attitudes, and horse related experiences of respondents. The structure of this survey was based upon a modification of the SHEL model which is widely used in the aviation industry. This model places the person at the focal point, and takes into account the interaction of that person with 4 other elements: soft ware, hard ware, environment and live-ware. In our case these 4 factors represented protocols and procedures, facilities, environment, and staff and other students.
This survey yielded a broad range of valuable data, therefore for the purpose of my research project it was decided that my analysis would focus on the risk of injury, and contributing factors to injury.
The distribution of data for each variable was evaluated to determine if it was normally distributed using the Shapiro-wilk test. As the data was not normally distributed for the most part the Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal Wallis were then implemented.
Adaptation of SHEL framework

5. Response rates Class size CI Goal 5% BVSc 2 124 BVSc 3 99 5.6% BVSc 497
3.8%
BVSc 5 95
7.5%
ALL
415
2.7%
Sample size 95% confidence level

6. Overview >330 injuries; 154 students 30 illnesses; 27 students
48.5%
8.9%
30 illnesses; 27 students

7. Where on body was the injury located?
Injury locations

8. Nature of injuries
n = 201
147 students

9. How was the injury caused?
STUDENT
SOFTWARE  Protocols & Procedures
“Education”
HARDWARE  Facilities Equipment
ENVIRONMENT  Location
LIVE WARE  Staff & Other Students Animals

10. How was the injury caused?

11. Regarding your most recent large animal related injury
What programme year?
What animal species?
n = 151
n = 150
5th year students at greatest risk (p = 0.002)

12. Where were you located at the time of the injury?

13. Where were you located at the time of the injury?
STUDENT
SOFTWARE  Protocols & Procedures
HARDWARE  Facilities Equipment
ENVIRONMENT  Location
LIVE WARE  Staff & Other Students Animals
n = 149

14. Factors that may have contributed to injury?
Personal
Animal
Rich set of qualitative data

15. Heath & Safety Awareness & Adherence
Awareness of H&S for animal/activity?
How likely to follow them?
STUDENT
SOFTWARE  Protocols & Procedures
HARDWARE  Facilities Equipment
ENVIRONMENT  Location
LIVE WARE  Staff & Other Students Animals
n = 150

16. Safety measures or PPE?

17. Safety measures or PPE?

18. Safety measures or PPE?

19. What could have been done to reduce risk?

20. To whom was/should the injury reported?
What actually happened?

21. Who is responsible for their safety?
STUDENT
SOFTWARE  PROTOCOLS & PROCEDURES
HARDWARE  FACILITIES
EQUIPMENT
ENVIRONMENT  LOCATION
WEATHER
LIVE WARE  STAFF & OTHER STUDENTS
ANIMALS
On campus
staff
other student
student
On farms
farmer
At veterinary practice
veterinarian

22. Discussion Students are learning in highly hazardous environments
site assessments & SOP’s
consistent PPE standard
consistent H&S training & practise lacking?
Injury or illness in large animal practice is not a rite of passage
Attitudes, perceptions & behaviours of vets leads to high lifelong professional risk

23. What next? Complete quantitative data analyses Multivariate analyses
Pathway analysis
Thematic analyses
Reduce student risk of harm

24. Questions?
Acknowledgment – Janis Bridges