Occupational injuries among nurses and aides in a hospital setting

Details

• Personal Author:
  Boden LI ; Hashimoto D ; Hopcia K ; Kenwood C ; Sembajwe G ; Sorensen, Glorian ; Stoddard AM ; Tveito TH
• Description:
  Background: Patient care workers in acute care hospitals are at high risk of injury. Recent studies have quantified risks and demonstrated a higher risk for aides than for nurses. However, no detailed studies to date have used OSHA injury definitions to allow for better comparability across studies. Methods: We linked records from human resources and occupational health services databases at two large academic hospitals for nurses (n = 5,991) and aides (n = 1,543) in patient care units. Crude rates, rate ratios, and confidence intervals were calculated for injuries involving no days away and those involving at least 1 day away from work. Results: Aides have substantially higher injury rates per 100 full-time equivalent workers (FTEs) than nurses for both injuries involving days away from work (11.3 vs. 7.2) and those involving no days away (9.9 vs. 5.7). Back injuries were the most common days away (DA) injuries, while sharps injuries were the most common no days away (NDA) injuries. Pediatric/neonatal units and non-inpatient units had the lowest injury rates. Operating rooms and the float pool had high DA injury rates for both occupations, and stepdown units had high rates for nurses. NDA injuries were highest in the operating room for both nurses and aides. Conclusions: This study supports the importance of a continuing emphasis on preventing back and sharps injuries and reducing risks faced by aides in the hospital setting. Uniform injury definitions and work time measures can help benchmark safety performance and focus prevention efforts [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Health Personnel Musculoskeletal Diseases Needlestick Injuries Occupational Health Operating Rooms Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Occupational Injuries Back-injuries Health-care Health-care-personnel Health-services Healthcare Workers Hospital Injury Rates Information-retrieval-systems Injury-prevention Injuryies Job-analysis Lost-work-days Medical-services Musculoskeletal-system-disorders Needlestick-injuries Nurses Operating-rooms OSHA-recordable Injuries Risk-factors Safety-climate Safety-practices Statistical-analysis Total-Worker-Health Work-analysis Work-practices Worker-health

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• ISSN:
  0271-3586
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  117-126
• Volume:
  55
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20040240
• Citation:
  Am J Ind Med 2012 Feb; 55(2):117-126
• Contact Point Address:
  Dr. Leslie I. Boden, PhD, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118
• Email:
  lboden@bu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction ; Healthcare and Social Assistance
• Performing Organization:
  Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20070901
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• End Date:
  20260831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6d0f23fe239939b5bc9ef573944fd6ddfe9f1d52f7aad3d0daa0f4a4ca43287fef27c63f8793d924d196a28c0eeffcbe9428e22fd878ffb638d4b47b81129660
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/193182/cdc_193182_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 121.72 KB ]