Occupational safety among intensive care unit nurses and affecting factors

This study was conducted to determine the occupational safety and the factors influencing it in intensive care nurses. It is a descriptive cross-sectional study consisting of nurses working in the internal and surgical intensive care of three public hospitals in Gaziantep. In the power analysis performed, the sample size of the study was calculated as a minimum of 111 nurses and the study was completed with 137 nurses. The data were collected by questionnaires consisting of 18 questions, which was constructed by the light of the literature, about the demographic and job security information and the "work safety scale" developed for the health personnel working at the hospital. The scale ranges from 1 to 6 when divided by the number of items. Data obtained from the study were evaluated by Student t, One Way Anova, Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. The average score of occupational safety scale of all nurses who were included in the study was determined as 2.8±0.8. The mean score of occupational safety measures for nurses working in intensive care units was statistically higher than for those in surgical intensive care units (2.6±0.82) (p<0.05). The lowest subscale point average was occupational diseases and complaints (1.7 ± 0.9), the highest score was the managerial support and approaches (4.0 ± 1.5), protective measures and rules (4.0 ± 1.5) and physical environment suitability (4.1 ± 1.4). In this study, it was determined that nurses working in intensive care units were not adequately secured and that job security was affected by many factors. Inline with these results; It may be advisable to take measures to increase the safety of nurses in intensive care units.