Survey on current status and influencing factors of occupational hazards among nursing staff in general hospitals

OBJECTIVE To investigate the current status of occupational hazards among nursing staff in general hospitals, explore the influencing factors and analyze the prevalence of occupational exposure among the nursing staff.

METHODS A survey was conducted for the nursing staff who were selected from 8 general hospitals in Beijing through convenience sampling method, and the data regarding the occupational exposure among the nursing staff from 2023 to 2024 were summarized and analyzed. Statistical analyses were performed for the survey data by SPSS 23.0 software.

RESULTS Among 963 nursing staff included in the survey, the average index of total occupational risk was 311.55; 19 of 28 items of occupational hazard risks were intolerable risks. There were no significant differences in the risk indexes among the nursing staff with different education backgrounds and working years; there were significant differences in the hazard risk indexes of body mechanics, psychological society and organizational factors among the nursing staff with different titles (P < 0.05). There were significant differences in accident hazard, physical hazard, body mechanics, psychological society, organizational hazard and biological hazard among the different departments of nursing staff (P < 0.05). There were totally 184 case-times of occupational exposures that were actively reported by nursing staff in 2023 and 2024.

CONCLUSIONS The status of occupational exposure among the nursing staff in the general hospitals remains concerning. The structure of occupational hazards has shifted from predominantly physical risks to psychosocial risks. The perceptions of occupational risks vary significantly among the nursing staff with different titles, the occupational risk vary among the departments, and a cognitive-behavioral dissociation in occupational protection practices persists to some extent among the nursing personnel. Healthcare institutions must continuously strengthen occupational protection system through multidimensional approaches to address these evolving challenges.