Nurses' assessments on occupational health and safety practices in hospital and affecting factors

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine nurses' evaluations of occupational health and safety practices in the hospital and the factors affecting it. Method: The study is of descriptive type. 180 nurses working in a state hospital in Alanya district of Antalya were sampled. Institutional and ethical committee permissions were obtained. The Occupational Safety Scale for the Health Personnel Working in the Hospital was used to collect the data. After obtaining the informed consent form from the participants; The data were collected by the researcher between December 2020 and November 2021. Percentage, number and parametric-nonparametric tests were used to evaluate the data. A value of 0.05 was accepted as the level of significance in the study. Results: The mean age of the nurses included in the study was 31.0±7.59. 52.2% of the nurses are women, 52.7% are single, 72.3% are undergraduate graduates. 57.2% of the nurses are on duty, 34.4% of them work in clinics. 21.6% of the nurses reported that they had never had a work accident in their workplace. Of those who had work-related illness, 24.4% stated that they had psychosocial disorders and 27.2% had muscle-joint diseases. The group with the highest Occupational Safety Scale score of 180.8±23.2 for the Health Personnel Working in the Hospital was the group who had three or more occupational accidents. It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference between the number of occupational accidents that nurses had in the institution and the scores they received from the sub-dimensions of the scale, such as managerial support and approaches, protective measures and rules, and the Occupational Safety Scale for the Health Personnel Working in the Hospital score averages. Conclusion: In line with the data of this study, it has been revealed that the occupational health and safety practices of nurses are affected by work accidents and work-related illnesses. It has been revealed that nurses who have just started to work and who do not have enough experience should be given training specific to the units they work. Keywords: occupational health and safety, occupational health nurse, occupational accident, occupational disease