Background & objectives: The hand is one of the sensivitive organs of the body. The hand injuries usually occur in workers and are one of the most common causes of disabilies. The aim of this study was to investigate the causes of the hand injuries leading to defect among industrial workers and farmers’ reffered to emergency department of Fatemi hospital in Ardabil.

  Methods: In a cross-sectional study, from January 2009 to Agust 2010, 100 patients with hand injuries were included. The data were collected by the chek list including: category of severity, time and type of incident, and location and cause of the injuri and then were analyzed statistically by Chi-square test.

  Results : Most of the industrial workers (58%) ranging as 20–29 years old and had 38 years as an average. Sixty two percent of them were working more than 8 hours per day and 64.7% experienced severe injuries in their hands. Amputation showed to be the most common injury in this group. Most of the farmers (30%) were in age group 20-29 years and from them 70% were working less than 8 hours per day. In this group, 54% of injuries occurred in left hand and the most common type of injuries was amputation (54%).

  Conclusion: The highest incidence of hand injuries has been shown to occur among industrial workers with 28 years as mean and working for more than 8 hours per day without any formal training before starting to work. So, it seems to be need we use the expert workers with the high level background and don’t use adolescents under 15 years.