The work of the nursing team in the operating room and the health-related damages

Abstract

Objectives: to analyze the work of the nursing team in the operating room and the physical, psychological, and social damage related to occupational health. Methods: quantitative study conducted from November 2017 to January 2018 in the operating room of a university hospital. The sample consisted of 160 nursing workers who responded to the Work-Related Damage Assessment Scale. Data were analyzed using the Student’s t test, One-Way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Pearson’s chi-square test. Results: psychological and social damage were assessed by workers as low risk by 86.8% (139) and 87.4% (140), respectively. Physical damage was considered a medium risk by 57.9% (93) of the sample. Conclusions: the results direct the attention of managers and the occupational medicine service to physical damage, preventing them from getting worse and thus promoting improvements in working conditions and occupational health.

Harmful factors at the workplace of an operating nurse

“…Mitigating or eliminating these environmental factors can increase employee satisfaction and retention [33]. As in our study, also Kulczycka, Żarnowska, Stychno et al found that there is a relationship between the hourly dimension of work and its impact on workload as an occupational risk factor, which is also related to the number of surgical procedures and preparatory activities required to perform them [34]. The data collected by Kulagowska in a group of 398 nurses working in different types of operating rooms in 11 public hospitals prove that the main source of problems is the organization of work, technical factors, working means, workspace, and the nurses' knowledge of harmful and burdensome factors, ways to reduce their impact and/or protect themselves from them.…”