Was the affected employee’s injury or illness solely the result of personal grooming, self-medication for a non-work-related condition, or intentionally self-inflicted?

• Yes
• No

NOTE: Personal grooming activities are activities directly related to personal hygiene, such as combing and drying hair, brushing teeth, clipping fingernails and the like. Bathing or showering at the workplace when necessary because of an exposure to a substance at work is not within the personal grooming exception in Section 1904.5(b)(2)(vi). Thus, if an employee slips and falls while showering at work to remove a contaminant to which he has been exposed at work, and sustains an injury that meets one of the general recording criteria listed in Section 1904.7(b)(1), the case is recordable. See, OSHA Recordkeeping FAQ 5-3.

For example, a burn injury from a hair dryer used at work to dry the employee’s hair would not be work-related. Similarly, a negative reaction to a medication brought from home to treat a non-work condition would not be considered a work-related illness, even though it first manifested at work. See, the preamble to the 2001 final rule revising OSHA’s recordkeeping regulation at 66 Federal Register 5951.