Fatores de risco no ambiente do trabalho de enfermagem em um hospital universitário

• Main Author: Duarte, Nei Santos
• Publication Date: 2010
• Format: Master thesis
• Language: por
• Source: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UERJ
• Download full: http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/handle/1/11243
• topic: Occupational risk; Nursing; Ergonomics; Risco Ocupacional; Enfermagem; Ergonomia; Riscos ocupacionais; CNPQ::CIENCIAS DA SAUDE::ENFERMAGEM

This research was carried out in a Rio de Janeiro State University Hospital through a descriptive quantitative approach. The aim of this study was to identify environmental risk factors in nursing professionals work situations from the systematic observation of the workplaces by the health and workplace safety professionals and by the head nurses of a University Hospital. Later on, this study s results would lead to a discussion on the occupational risks to which nursing professionals are exposed, on their awareness regarding those risks and on how they proceed to identify and to take measures against them. The population was composed by three health and workplace safety professionals and by thirty head nurses from the hospitalization unit. For data collection a closed questionnaire proposed by Boix e Vogel (1997) in their Risk Assessment at the Workplace and adapted to be applied in health facilities by Mauro (2001) was used. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 15.0. The results highlighted the following occupational risk factors as the most relevant in this research: inadequate fire prevention and emergency exit systems, inappropriate preventive maintenance and safety devices and instructions, exposure to biological risks, inadequate workplace architectural designs, irregular staff distribution and professionals insufficient ergonomic awareness. The previous factors can have a direct or an indirect impact on workplaces that may cause an adverse environment for the professionals to perform their activities, and working in such environments may endanger their professional health and life. From this study it was concluded that most of the nursing professionals working as managers are unaware of the risk factors to which their nursing staff and even themselves are exposed, since they carry out their occupational activities mostly with great risk of accident and diseases. This study has provided better understanding on the risk factors that can be found in the environment, on their implications for the nursing work process and for the professionals health, on the importance of managers insertion and commitment to the workplace environment risk factors and on the participative ergonomics during the analysis and prevention process of occupational risks.