Comparison of indicators of injuries in military personnel serving on conscription in the Armed Forces of Russia and the Republic of Belarus (2003–2020)

Abstract

Relevance. Injury indicators in military personnel reflect injuries and their consequences that occur in a certain period, as a rule, over a year. Injury indicators in the Armed Forces (AF) are important for assessing occupational safety.Intention: To compare injury indicators in military conscripts between the Russian Armed Forces and the Republic of Belarus for 18 years from 2003 to 2020.Methodology. We carried out a selective statistical analysis of medical reports on the health status of personnel and the activities of the medical service according to 3/MED form in military units where at least 80 % of the total number of conscripts of the Armed Forces of Russia and Belarus served. Groups (blocks) of injuries in Chapter XIX “Injuries, poisoning and certain other consequences of exposure to external causes” were agreed with the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th revision (ICD-10). Injury data were calculated per 1000 military personnel or ‰, mortality rates – per 100 000 military personnel.Results and their Discussion. In the Russian Armed Forces compared to the Belarusian Armed Forces, the average annual injury rates (primary morbidity) of conscripts were (15.91 ± 1.65) ‰ vs (20.23 ± 1.96) ‰, hospitalizations with injuries (14.16 ± 1.29 ) vs (14.50 ± 0.96) ‰, work days lost (303.4 ± 27.0) vs (303.4 ± 27.0) ‰, dismissal due to injuries (0.552 ± 0.066) vs (0.551 ± 0.051) ‰, injury-related mortality (21.96 ± 4.26) vs (24.18 ± 4.29) per 100 000, respectively. As a rule, polynomial trends with high determination coefficients showed a decrease in the levels of injury, hospitalization, work days lost and mortality. Dismissal trends showed decrease in the Russian Armed Forces and increase in the Belarusian Armed Forces. The conscripts of the Armed Forces of Russia and Belarus have a positive statistically significant congruence in indicators of injuries, hospitalizations, work days lost and mortality, which may indicate the influence of the same (unidirectional) factors in the formation of annual indicators. Injuries of the head (Group 1, Chapter XIX by ICD-10), shoulder girdle and upper limbs (Groups 5–7), the area of the hip joint and lower extremities (Groups 8–10), injuries, affecting several areas of the body (Group 11), and the consequences of injuries, poisoning and other external causes (Group 22) are of high military-epidemiological significance for conscripts in the Russian Armed Forces and the Belarusian Armed Forces. These injuries accounted for 78.7 % and 82.8 % of the generalized estimate in the Russian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Belarus, respectively.Conclusion. Taking into account the indicators of injuries will allow the medical service to optimize the calculation of forces and assets for treatment and rehabilitation of servicemen with injuries. Injuries are not only a medical problem; it is necessary to involve more extensively military professionals from various services to analyze the cause-and-effect relationships of injuries and develop measures for their prevention.