Assessing the Association between Pre Employment Drug Screening and a Reduction in Workplace Accidents Injuries

The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative study was to expand on previous scholarly work, demonstrating enhanced workplace health and safety through a reduction of workplace accidents and injuries. The association between pre-screening employees for drug use, and accident and/or injury rates was assessed. Using two subsets of archival records, it was investigated whether or not lower workplace accident/injury rates were associated with records representing employees pre-screened for drug use, compared with records representing employees who were not pre-screened. Archive data records were randomly sampled, creating a group of 300 records representing employees pre-screened for drug use before hire, testing negative, and a comparison group of 300 records representing employees not undergoing any drug screening. Average annual accident rate for the pre-screened employees' subset (2.16%) was less than one-half the rate for the non-screened employees' subset (4.50%). A Mann-Whitney U test showed pre-screened employee accident/injury rate {Mdn = 2) differed from non-screened employees {Mdn - 2, U= 40950.0,p < 0.0013, r = .13). A Kruskal-Wallis test indicated significant effect of gender (H(2) = 7.2924, p < .0001), and industry sector (H(2) = 12.1231 , p - .0172) on the non-screened employee subset. A Mann-Whitney U test showed positive post-accident rates of pre-screened employees {Mdn = 99) differed from non-screened employees {Mdn = 99, U - 40864.0, p < 0.0011, r = .13). A Kruskal- Wallis test indicated significant effect of gender (H(2) = 7.6620, p < .0001), and industry sector (H(2) = 12.7233,/? = .0119) on the non-screened subset. A Pearson's Chi-Square Test for Independence revealed industry classification assignment as not independent, X,2(12, N = 600) = 109.26, p < .05. Study findings indicate a policy of including pre-employment drug screening in workplace drug testing programs is good practice, based on the association of pre-employment screening with workplace accident and injury reduction. Future research is recommended examining how gender and industry sector assignment affect workplace accidents and injuries, and if a relationship between pre-employment drug screening and post-accident drug testing enhance the effects of both tests.