Occupational Safety of Nurses Working in Surgical Clinics

Aim: This study was conducted to determine the status of occupational safety of nurses working in surgical clinics.

Method: This descriptive study was conducted on 324 nurses working in the surgical clinics of three university hospitals in three different cities during August–October 2017. Data related to descriptive features were collected using the data collection form prepared by the researchers and The Occupational Safety Scale (OSS) for health care personnel working in hospital. Number, percentage, mean and standard deviation, independent t-test, and Bonferroni-corrected one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for data analysis.

Results: The mean age of the nurses was 33.06±7.17 years, 68.5% of them were undergraduates, and more than half of them were working in continuous night shifts. The total OSS score of the nurses was 121.45±39.20. The subscale scores of “control of materials and equipment,” “protective measures and rules,” and “physical environment suitability” of the operating room nurses were significantly lower. The score of the “health screening and registration system” of nurses who worked constantly at night and the scores of “material, equipment, and equipment supervision” of nurses who provided care to one to five patients were significantly lower.

Conclusion: This study showed that surgical nurses, especially operating room nurses, believed that the environment in which they were working was not safe and evaluated the subscales of occupational safety, such as “occupational diseases and complaints,” “managerial support and approaches,” and “control of materials and equipment,” as inadequate.