الفهرس 
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Abstract
The critical care nurses face a variety of occupational health hazards which categorized into: physical, psychosocial, chemical, and biological health hazards. Occupational health hazards are much higher for nurses than many other jobs and neglecting this fact may reduce the quality of nursing services. Safety of the nurses from workplace induced injuries and illnesses is important to nurses themselves as well as to the patients they serve. The presence of healthy and well-rested nurses is critical to provide vigilant monitoring, empathic patient care. Yet, by improving the wellbeing of the critical care nurses, wellbeing of the critically ill patients can also be improved.
In addition, when nurses and patients share the same environment, they share the same hazards, such as infectious agents, toxic cleaning chemicals, poor air quality, needle sticks, and violence. Several studies have indicated the need to identify the factors causing hazards in ICU as well as strategies to avoid them, so that the health of these workers is not affected.
The current study aims to identify the health hazards associated with nursing practice and their causes as perceived by the critical care nurses.
To fulfill the aims of this study a descriptive research design was used. This study is carried out at the ICUS of the Alexandria Main University Hospital, namely casualty intensive care unit (Unit I), (Unit II), general intensive care unit (Unit III) and Emergency unit.
Sample of this study included all the critical care nurses (152) who are worked at the previously mentioned settings and are involved in providing direct patients’ care and included the different nursing categories.
To accomplish the aims of the current study; one tool was developed by the researcher after reviewing the relevant literature. Critical Care Nurses’ Health Hazards Associated with Nursing Practices Structured Interview Schedule that consists of five parts. The first part covered the critical care nurses profile such as: age, sex, marital status, level of education, and years of experience. The second part covered the critical care nurses’ physical health hazards related symptoms and their causes. The third part covered the critical care nurses’ psychosocial health hazards related symptoms and their causes. The fourth part covered the critical care nurses’ chemical health hazards related symptoms and their causes. The fifth part covered the critical care nurses’ biological health hazards related symptoms and their causes.
An official letter was obtained from the faculty of nursing Alexandria University to the hospital administrative authorizes in order to obtain their acceptance to collect the necessary data from the selected ICUs. Then, the permission was obtained after providing an explanation of the aim of the study.
Content validity of the developed tool was done by seven experts in the related fields from Alexandria Faculty of Nursing; three professors of critical care nursing, one assistant professor of nursing education, and one professor of nursing administration and one professor of critical care medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, and the necessary modifications were done based on the experts suggestions.
A pilot study was carried out on 15 critical care nurses to test the feasibility and applicability of the tool and the necessary modifications were done accordingly, those nurses were excluded from the study.
Reliability of the tool was done using (α) Cronbach test on a pilot study result, and it was 0.914 which was acceptable.
Data Collection: the data was collected as the following.
The researcher conducted the structured interview schedule with each nurse individually using the developed tool. During the interview the following steps were done:
The aim of the study was explained for each nurse in details
Each nurse was asked to put her or his agreement about the perception of the health hazards related symptoms, using the following scale: agree scored three or neutral scored two and disagree scored one.
Each nurse was asked to put her or his agreement about the perception to causes of the health hazards using the following scale: agree scored two and disagree scored one.
Data were collected by the researcher during four consecutive month’s from17th of February 2016 to 19th of June 2016.
The collected data was analyzed by using the appropriate statistical tests to identify the health hazards associated with nursing practice of critical care nurses and the causes of these hazards.
Results and conclusion of the current study
The main results and conclusion of the current study indicated that nearly half of the CCNs perceived low back pain; headache; fatigue; and insufficient sleep as ”always” physical health hazards that they may be exposed to. In addition the studied CCNs perceived that increased workload, long periods of standing, patient’s lifting and transfer, handling of heavy patients, prolonged work shift, and lack of use assistive devices, excessive noise, emergency situations, and shift schedule as causes of the physical health hazards.
Critical care nurses face several psychosocial health hazards. Stress was found to be the most perceived symptom as ”always” psychosocial health hazard that they may be exposed to. While feeling of defeat, violence, and burnout syndrome were found to be as ”sometimes” psychosocial health hazards. Moreover, The current study results revealed that the CCNs perceived that excessive noise, workload, sophisticated technologies, dealing with death and dying and severely traumatized patients as causes of the psychosocial health hazards.
Results of the current study revealed that skin irritation followed by latex allergy were perceived symptoms as ”always” chemical health hazards the studied CCNs may be exposed to. On the other hand, respiratory tract irritation was perceived by the studied CCNs as ”sometimes” chemical health hazards. Farther more, The Critical care nurses perceived that frequent use of soaps, frequently use of latex gloves, exposure to droplets of liquids during cleaning (sydex), and inhalation of concentrated alcohol vapor as causes of chemical health hazards.
The present study revealed that the most perceived biological health hazards by the studied CCNs as sometimes symptoms they may be exposed to included sore throat; cough; and respiratory distress. Moreover, the studied CCNs perceived that dealing with infected patient, do not using personal protective equipment and unit warm temperature as causes of the biological health hazards.