Workplace Health & Safety

MJ is a janitor working in an office building for the past 5 years. He sustained a third-degree burn with a secondary infection and was sent to the county hospital. He was diagnosed with leprosy. The employees in the office building were concerned with the risk of transmission. This article reviews leprosy, and implications for occupational health nurses are discussed.

Emergency telecommunications personnel (ETCP) form the hub of police agencies and persistently deal with distressing situations on a daily basis, making them highly susceptible to psychological and physiological ailments. To date, few studies have examined the necessity or feasibility of implementing a resilience training intervention for ETCP. In this study, the authors assessed baseline psychological data from the ETCP of a large police department to determine the differences in baseline measures for ETCP and police officers. Participants included ETCP ages 29 to 64 years (n = 19). Results showed that ETCP self-reported greater levels of psychological stress compared with police officers (p < .05) for the majority of measures; ETCP experience excessive levels of stress and greater prevalence of chronic disease. Consideration should be given to piloting resilience interventions within this group to manage stress; improve health, performance, and decision making; and decrease the prevalence of chronic disease.

Work-family conflict is challenging for workers and may lead to depression, anxiety, and overall poor health. Sleep plays an important role in the maintenance of mental health; however, the role of sleep in the association between work-family conflict and mental health is not well-studied. Questionnaires were collected from 650 nursing assistants in 15 nursing homes. Multivariate linear regression modeling demonstrated that increased work-family conflict was associated with lower mental health scores (β = −2.56, p < .01). More work-family conflict was correlated with more job demands, less job control, less social support, and longer work hours. Poor sleep quality, but not short sleep duration, mediated the association between work-family conflict and mental health. Workplace interventions to improve nursing assistants’ mental health should increase their control over work schedules and responsibilities, provide support to meet their work and family needs, and address healthy sleep practices.

Hospital nurses are expected to maintain optimal work performance; yet, fatigue can threaten safe practice and result in unfavorable patient outcomes. This descriptive cross-sectional study explored the association between fatigue, work schedules, and perceived work performance among nurses. The study sample included 77 bedside nurses who were mostly female, single, and between 20 and 29 years of age. The majority worked 8-hour shifts and overtime. Nurses who worked during off days reported significantly higher chronic fatigue compared with those nurses who took time off. Nurses who reported feeling refreshed after sleep had significantly less chronic and acute fatigue and more intershift recovery. Nurses with acute and chronic fatigue perceived poorer physical performance. Also, nurses who reported chronic fatigue perceived they were less alert and less able to concentrate when providing patient care. Less effective communication was also associated with acute and chronic fatigue. In conclusion, fatigue has safety implications for nurses’ practice that should be monitored by nursing management.

The objective of this study was to assess work-related hygiene practices and the frequency and location of skin rashes due to cutaneous contact with crop-associated materials (e.g., pesticides) for female nursery and fernery workers in Central Florida. A cross-sectional, community-based participatory research study of 237 female nursery and fernery workers between the ages of 19 and 43 years with significant cutaneous contact with foliage crops was conducted using a self-report questionnaire and a skin rash chart assessment tool. Of the 237 farmworkers surveyed, 37.1% (n = 88) reported a rash on at least one area of their bodies. Women who were pregnant during the study were 4.7 times more likely to report more than 30% total body surface area (TBSA) covered by rash compared with non-pregnant fernery workers (p = .045; 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.04, 21.35]). Further research is needed to better understand the development of skin rashes among farmworkers, to generate effective prevention strategies.

With the increased use of electronic devices with visual displays, computer vision syndrome is becoming a major public health issue. Improving the visual status of workers using computers results in greater productivity in the workplace and improved visual comfort.