Occupational Health Hazards - Term Paper Example

Occupational health hazards Name Institution Occupational health hazards Abstract This study analyzes the work related health hazards for nursing technicians and nurses, evaluation of different types and numbers of hazards that occur throughout their career in nursing. It also involves risk assessment and subsequent management of risk involved. As a place of work, hospitals can cause job related health hazards to nursing technicians and nurses through using strength and physical energy in providing health care. Furthermore, there can also be some social and psychological hazards that do happen. Introduction It is increasingly becoming a common knowledge that health workers, particularly nursing technicians, and nurses are prone to a range of health hazards. Several studies have shown that there is need to identify factors that cause hazards and the strategies to avert them, so that, the workers’ health is not affected. Strain signs in nursing technicians and nurses are evident in many ways depending on the complexity of the task assigned. Undoubtedly, mental and physical fatigue is one of the frequent causes of strains. Nurses are generally involved in the organization the environment, coordination of the nursing staff, and material resources as well as the provision of care in complex procedures. On the other hand, nursing technicians are primarily involved in direct care of a patient that include administration of medication, hygiene, placing bandages, and changing them, etc. Some studies including Cassie’s (2008) have shown that, symptoms of intense psychological fatigue are common in nurses who occupy hierarchically higher positions than nursing technicians do. Possibly this is due to workloads that are associated to the position that is held in the process of labor. The United Kingdom, which passed the HASWA act, and as of today defines the authority and structure for regulation, enforcement, and encouragement of workplace safety, welfare, and health within the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is a requirement in U. K. that those people employed in whatever form are aware of hazards involved and how to manage them. It is also a prerequisite for many European countries, including the U. K., that an organization should carry out satisfactory and appropriate risk assessment and this involves healthcare organizations (Lorient 2000). 1.1. Background Over the years, there is a belief that work related hazards have some undesirable effects on safety and health of employees and effectiveness of their respective organizations. Not only do the public and the media reflect this belief, but professional and scientific organizations including trade unions and labor force also have the same belief. According to Karasek (2006) by nature, nursing is a stressful profession that requires strong willed people. Everyday nurses and their technicians confront death, suffering, and grief more than other people do. It is not surprising that nurses and their technicians do experience high level of stress. The hospitals management responsibility for the health of nursing staff is always set within the structure of international and national laws that focuses on cycle of control and risk management process (Phil, 2009). 1.2. Work related hazards Occupational hazards are aspects of situations at work or events that have potential for harm. These hazards can be widely divided into physical and psychosocial hazards. The physical hazards include chemical, mechanical, microbiological, biomechanical, and radiological. Psychosocial hazards on the other hand include are hazards that are related to work organization, job content interactions, management systems, organizational and environmental conditions, and workers needs. Those things that prove to be harmful influence the health of workers through their experience and perception. Exposure to these hazards may threaten the physical and psychological health of an employee (Phil, 2009). 1.2.1. Physical hazards Any biological or bodily pain is termed as physical hazard. There are physical hazards that a nurse faces that include, leg pains, body pains, leg pains, arm pains, sleep disturbances, circulatory disturbances, digestive disturbances, respiratory disturbances, visual disturbances, appetite shifts, auditory disturbances. This particularly happens because combination of muscle tension, muscle stress and physical load. In addition, there is the mechanism of direct physicochemical, for instance, the risk of contracting human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV). This risk may occur especially if the nurse is not keen on protection during working with an infected patient. This is a fact that may lead to inefficient services from the nurses or their assistance. HIV leads to AIDS a condition that not every nurse would like to acquire. Ionizing and non ionizing radiation technology is developing rapidly nowadays. For example, when disinfecting or sterilizing medical tools the staff uses ultraviolet (UV) rays which are very harmful. If UV light is improperly used then it may cause dermatitis or opthalmia , and inhaling ozone with high concentration one may experience chest tightness, shortness of breath, and pulmonary edema. Another hazard that the nurses face is noise pollution for emergency cries of help, sounds of alarms, of monitoring equipments. In the end, all of this noise leads to tension and stress response Cassie (2008). Nurses encounter different types of disinfectants during their career. Some of these disinfectants include peracetic acids, fixed agents such as formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, and other clinical antibiotics, all kinds of emissions, anticancer drugs etc. All these drugs and emissions can endanger the lives of nursing staff through ingestion, inhalation, and absorption eventually, leading to damage of skin, eyes, mucous membranes, upper respiratory tract, and nervous system. Furthermore, there is harm cause by mercury from monitors of blood pressure, thermometers, batteries, medical supplies, fluorescent lamps. Mercury has some toxicity on kidneys and nerves. Studies suggest that products that contain dioxin such as sanitary materials may cause endocrine disorders, endometriosis, and cancer. 1.2.2. Psychosocial hazards There are different psychosocial work environments and job characteristics that are hazardous for most employees. These hazards relate to aspects of organizational culture and function, career development, participation, job content, role in organization, work load and work pace, relationship at work and home, and work schedule. Each of these characteristics has proved to be harmful to health of any employee including nursing staff. For example, conditions that define the hazardous nature of work pace or workload include quantitative work under load and work over load, lack of pacing control, time pressures, urgency in work, and deadlines. Karasek observes that, the possibility that characteristics of work may not be additive in effects on their health, but it does not mean that work characteristics might not combine in an interactive way in relation to the effects on their health. For example, when Karasek analyzed data from the United States and Sweden, he found out those workers with jobs that people perceive to contain high job demands, low decision latitude report low satisfaction, and poor health. Although some questions have risen concerning the validity of this theory, some studies have appeared to confirm this theory. In their studies, Anderson and Gray have attracted some attention. These two authors have identified seven major causes of psychosocial hazards for nursing staff. These hazards include, conflict with physicians, lack of support from staff, dealing with dying patients and death, lack of enough preparation in dealing with emotional needs of the patients and their relatives or friends, work load, treatment uncertainty, and conflict between nurses and supervisors. Gray (2007) together with his colleague, compiled almost a similar list around same time as Karasek (2006) which included concerns about skills and technical knowhow, management difficulties, issues that involved caring of patients, and issues on career development. Leatt and Scheck echoed similar sentiments. In her research Cassie (2008), identified three principal sources of psychosocial hazards; they include working habits of supervisors, and head nurses, conflict, and work overload. Cassie (2008) makes some two important points about psychosocial hazards. First, as Anderson and Gray observed, the role of nursing is associated with many conflicting demands that from nurse managers and supervisors, and administrative and medical staff. These situation leads to role conflict and work overload. One of such conflicts deals with instrumental and target demands of improving the lives of the patients, and some of the conflicts concerns provision of emotional support and relieving the stress of patients. The conflicts of this kind are obvious when nursing staff are dealing with critically ill patients and almost dying (Cassie, 2008). 1.3. Protective measures 1.3.1. Physical hazard protection The protection form X ray radiation and UV light is essential for all nursing staff. They can use shielding devices to protect themselves when dealing with radiations patients. In the sterilization and disinfection process, the nursing staff should wear protective goggles to protect their eyes. Furthermore, the staff should be able to learn about application of effective protective response to pressure, skills on first aid, and proficient utilization of emergency equipments. In addition, the windows of the wards should be open or there should be proper ventilation system. Chemicals such as glutaraldehyde , paracetic acid, and formaldehyde should always stay sealed to avoid spilling. The nursing staff should also learn about infectious diseases, especially, the transmission of the diseases from one person to the other (Lorient, 2007). 1.3.2. Psychosocial hazards protection The hospital management should reinforce social understanding and support so that there can be a sensible allocation of nursing personnel, hence, reducing work intensity. The hospital should also optimize the arrangement of rescue equipment through reasonable environmental layout. It is also important for management to ensure that there is establishment of good nurse to patient relationship, good nursing care, and to create pleasant working condition for the nursing staff. It should ensure that work at the hospital remains cheerful, optimistic, calm, and the nurses are in stable mind state. The management should work strongly in promoting gentle care for all patients and their relatives or friends. In addition, hospitals should improve nursing staff security awareness for the provision of legal protection. The nurse managers should enhance work related safety training that includes wearing of masks, scientific washing of hands, and the handling of injuries caused by needle sticks. Formulation of sensible protective measures and strict rules on isolation and disinfection systems is essential (Phil, 2009). 2. Risk assessment and management Risk assessment is a thorough inspection of what possible cause harm to a person in a workplace could. Risk assessment helps employers to point out substantial risks in work place, hence, avoiding wasting effort by targeting the risks effectively. It is a legal requirement for employers to protect their safety and health and for their employees. Health and safety at work (HASWA) act requires that all employers to assess risks to safety and health of employees when working. Risk assessment has six processes that include hazard identification, associated risk assessment, implementing suitable control strategies, monitoring effective control strategies, risk reassessment, and lastly, evaluation of training needs and information of employees exposed to hazards (Sadhra & Rampal, 2009). 2.1. Hazard identification Risk assessment can only begin when there has been recognition of a hazard by the nurses or management. There a numerous data sources that might alert hospital management and nursing staff about a potential hazard which include, personal nurses’ data on attendance, especially, that relating to staff turnover, internal transfers, and sickness absence. Others include, information on the attitude of nursing staff and their reaction towards work and work related matters, informationon incidents and accidents, work related health data from case records, information regarding complaints against nursing staff and disciplinary actions taken. There are other useful information such as nature of climate and complaints made by nursing staff. Often, extraordinary events such as death of an employee raises issues on work related hazards. Eventually, the management reviews relevant information after recognition of a serious problem. It is important for management to compare two different groups or sets of information in the same hospital or similar groups in another hospital. If the management makes such comparison then they will have a better view of a problem (Karasek, 2006). 2.2. Analysis of occupational hazards This analysis requires three steps that include planning for the assessment, analyzing nursing activities, and lastly, identification of nursing hazards and potential harm. All these steps are essential in the assessment of risk in nursing activities while at work. 2.2.1. Assessment planning Any organization that cares about its employees should carry out risk assessment in a systematic way. Therefore, the management must plan the process properly and carefully and make sure that they allocate adequate time and people. It is necessary for risk assessment to fit in the hospital culture both in the choice of method and in how it is used. The planning of risk assessment engrosses responding to three questions. These questions are; what will the risk assessment entail? Who will conduct the assessment? How will the implementation of assessment take place? The first question is concerned with the hazards discussed above. Furthermore, nursing staff that will take part in the assessment should know about the risk assessment. The second question needs more consideration than the first one. It is important for management to be careful when choosing risk assessment personnel. In law, it is mandatory that the people involved in the process of assessment can carry out proper assessment. In addition, they should have competent advisers who would help them carry out the assessment sufficiently. The most efficient strategy is the establishment of a risk assessment team. The team may consist of nursing staff representative, a hospital manager, and a person who is competent. All the members should be conversant with the nursing hazards and management before performing the assessment. Large hospitals will find it sensible to train a risk assessment team of their own (Sadhra & Rampal, 2009). Implementation of risk assessment has some steps that a coordinator orchestrated. After consolidating risk assessment team a coordinator should first brief the management team and other medical personnel on the importance and the necessity of the assessment. Other things that the coordinator is responsible include training the risk assessment team, and undertaking introduction on analysis of the hospital concerning its geographical and physical layout. Coordinator should also collect and review the information that are relevant to risk assessment, develop the method of assessment, conduct analysis on recorded observation and comments, review all the information together with the team, and finally the coordinator should complete the final report. Risk assessment should contain detailed understanding of nursing work activities (Sadhra & Rampal, 2009). The methods of collecting data for the purpose of risk assessment includes walk-through observation, semi or full structured interviews with nursing staff, nursing managers, patients, and other professionals. Other forms of data collection may include questionnaires, informal or formal group discussions, and eliciting knowledge through computer based techniques. Regardless of the method used, the assessment team should first do a walk through observation to cover different areas of assessment. During the walk through observation, the risk assessment team should talk to the entire nursing staff and the patients involved. It is also important for the team to observe how the nursing staff is working. Furthermore, the team should cross-examine all the information collected during the survey and keep all the supporting evidence (Sadhra & Rampal, 2009). After collection of data, the team can represent the data visually as a top to down series of charts. This is the hierarchical method and it contains flow charts that describe the activities carried out. The process also calls for estimation that is important regarding the time spent on the task. After completion, the data will portray a model of nursing staff activities, which are useful in locating exposure to hazards during work. This method of analysis is useful in many forms of work and most appropriate when the work is complex. It is also important to note that there should be cross- examination conducted on the whole process to avoid any faults. Finally, the assessment report is useful in the designing of strategies on management of health hazards. The importance of risk assessment is it informs the workers about their safety at work thus guaranteeing better working conditions (Karasek, 2006). Conclusion It is important for all the workers in any organization to have a safe working environment for the delivery of quality services and products. Nurses are very valuable members of humankind and for them to work with a stable mind; all the risks involved in their work should be minimal. This is achievable through efficient risk assessment and proper management of the hazards. All management of hospitals should ensure that they have a good risk assessment team. It is also the responsibility of hospital managers to implement all necessary measures recommended by risk assessment team. Despite the fact that these hazards are out in the open, the nursing staff still suffers greatly due to lack of respect and recognition from the public and other members of the medical profession. References Cassie, T. 2008. Nurses Occupational Hazards Survey. Critical Care Medicine, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham. Lorient, G. 2000, The hospital environment pollution and protection. International Journal of Nursing volumes. karasek, A., 2006, Job demands: decision latitude and mental strain, MIT, Cambridge. Gray, C., and Anderson, H., 2007, Stress among hospital nursing staff, Cengage, Sidney. Phil, H., 2009, Health and safety at work, Butterworth-Heinemann, London. Sadhra, S. & Rampal, K., 1999, Occupational health: Risk assessment and management, Wiley, Wadsworth. Read More