Occupational injuries and work experience

The relationship between occupational injury rates and work experiences was studied in a population of 344 volunteer industrial workers by monitoring visits to the medical clinic of their employer. Subjects were assigned to one of three categories depending upon their work experiences: Incumbent (at least one year of experience prior to entering the study), Recent Hire (more than 3 months but less than one year of experience), or Probationary (less than 3 months of experience). The relationship was found to follow the shape of an inverted-U with the Recent Hire group suffering the highest injury rate. The Probationary group (also the most carefully supervised group) experienced the lowest injury rate.