EQUINE VETERINARY EDUCATION / AE / APRIL 2018


201


Survey sample The sampling frame for this study was all veterinary surgeons working with horses in the UK. Two approaches were used to target this population. Firstly, delegates at the BEVA annual conference held in September 2013 were interviewed in person. Secondly, following the conference, an email was sent to all BEVA members with a link to the questionnaire. A total of 751 veterinary surgeons attended the British


Equine Veterinary Association annual conference in September 2013. Five veterinary students asked BEVA delegates to complete the questionnaire on a handheld device. Following the conference, the questionnaire was featured in the BEVA E-news and members who had not completed the questionnaire at the conference were invited to complete the questionnaire online. Emails were sent to approximately 1700 BEVA members on three separate occasions in the 6 weeks after the conference with information on the study and a link to complete the questionnaire. A copy of the questionnaire is included as supporting information (Supplementary Item 1).


Definition of injury The following definition of an injury was used: “An injury or event that required (self) treatment and/or resulted in time off work”. Participants were asked to list all anatomical sites ever injured and then asked to focus on further description of what they considered to be their worst injury.


Data analysis Simple descriptive analyses were conducted for categorical and continuous variables, as appropriate. Text mining techniques were employed to categorise methods that could be employed to make equine practice safer, using Wordstat/ Simstat software (Provalis research2). This involved reviewing answers to this question and creating groups of words that effectively categorised responses into separate themes based on the specific text used by each respondent.


Results


Survey respondents In total, 623 questionnaires were completed. Three questionnaires were removed from the analyses as they were


completed by veterinary nurses, resulting in 620 questionnaires, completed by current practicing equine vets, included in the study. Of these, 302 (49%) were completed at the BEVA conference (12–14 September 2013) and 318 (51%) online between 16 September 2013 and 20 November 2013. Of all respondents, 55% were female, the median age


was 37 years, the median length of time employed as an equine practitioner was 11 years and 85% of respondents were working full-time (Table 1).


All injuries sustained Across all 620 valid respondents, a total of 2292 injuries were reported in a total 8204 years working as a veterinary surgeon with horses (representing the total number of years worked in equine practice by those 620 respondents – i.e. the sum of the 620 responses to the question about the number of years working as an equine practitioner). This equates to one injury every 3 years 7 months working with horses in those respondents. Over a working life-time of 30 years, a veterinary surgeon working with horses may therefore expect to sustain between eight and nine injuries that require (self) treatment and/or result in time off work. Of 620 respondents, 495 stated that they had sustained at


least one injury while working with horses during their veterinary career. As one might expect, the mean total number of injuries sustained increased as the number of years in equine practice increased (Table 1). The mean number of injuries sustained by all 620 respondents was 3.7 injuries. A total of 617 respondents reported the number of years they had spent in equine practice (a total of 2284 injuries). For those with up to 5 years in equine practice, the average number of injuries sustained was 0.83 per year, for those with 5–10 years in equine practice, the average number of injuries sustained was 0.47 per year but for those with at least 15 years in equine practice the number of injuries sustained was between 0.18 and 0.22 per year (Fig 1).


Details of the ‘worst’ injury sustained by respondents When injury occurred and purpose of examination being conducted The majority of worst injuries (77%) were sustained by veterinary surgeons who were employed (i.e. not self- employed) at the time of injury and 88% of these


TABLE 1: Sex, age, length of time employed as equine practitioner, work status and mean number of injuries in veterinary surgeons with a range of years of experience


Sex Work status Age


Length of time employed as an equine veterinary practitioner (years) Length of time employed as an equine veterinary practitioner: <5 years


5 < 10 years 10 < 15 years 15 < 20 years 20 < 25 years 25 < 30 years ≥30 years


Male


Number 278


Female 341 Full-time 525 Part-time 93


Median 37 11


% of total 44.9


55.1 85.0 15.0


Mean 39.0 13.3


Number of vets Mean number of injuries sustained 144 122 115 78 58 40 60


1.7 3.1 4.3 3.1 4.7 4.9 7.7


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