Nurses’ Roles in Implementing Occupational and Environmental Health in Workplaces
Keywords:
Implementing Occupational and Environmental Health, Nurses’ Roles, WorkplaceAbstract
Nurses’ roles in implementing occupational and environmental health is crucial to both outcomes and quality of occupational and environmental health service. This descriptive study thus aimed to examine roles of nurses in implementing occupational and environmental health in the workplace at the Northern Region Industrial Estate. Study participants included 115 nurses. Data collection was carried out using a questionnaire form which had been confirmed the quality. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics.
The results of study
The sample were engaged in the roles of being educator, researcher, case manager, consultant, health promotion specialist, manager, and clinician at a high level with different rates (9.56% to 18.26%). While, over one-third (35.65%), of the sample found to act researcher role at a low level. The majority of clinician role was related to keeping worker health information confidential with regular practice (86.05%), while case manager role was coordinating referrals to related health organizations (39.13%). Only one-fifth of the sample was regularly involved in health promotion and prevention of nonoccupational diseases. The educator role was related to disseminated health knowledge to workers with regular practice (37.39%). It was also observed that regarding researcher role, none of the sample had experience in conducting or disseminating the research of occupational and environmental health nursing research.
The results of this study indicate the importance of role enhancement to support the implementation of occupational and environmental health services in the workplace. Workplace administrators should facilitate and support additional training in occupational and environmental health nursing to make nurses’ roles more effective, thus contributing to the quality of occupational and environmental health nursing service in the workplace remarkably.
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