This study compared the personality self-representations of 288 hand injured patients with those of 959 young people (15-25 years old) randomly selected from the general population (noted GP), and with those of 336 unemployed people of all ages in professional training (U) in Lorraine (north-eastern France).

The relationship between patients'personality self-representations and injury was also investigated.

Personality self-representations included 14 questions.

The work injured workmen having one or more previous work injuries during the last five years were more at ease with others than the other subjects.

Among the work injured workmen who had had no previous work injury during this time, the people aged 29 or less (the highest risk age class) were more optimistic than the others (71% vs 49%, p<0.05) ; a difference was also found for the items at ease with others, careful, dynamic, and non worried, but it was not significant possibly due to the small number of subjects.

The sum of these five items differed between the two age groups (3.29 ± 1.49 vs 2.55 ± 1.68, p<0.05).

These simple items would provide an interesting approach in terms of personality which could explain in part the excess of work injuries in young people, though the work requirement still seemed to be the highest risk factor.