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Abstract
Background: Nursing is a hazardous occupation, but little is known about workplace health and safety issues facing nursing work force in intensive care units (ICUs). Intensive care unit nurses are exposed to many occupational physical, chemical, biological, mechanical, social, psychological and environmental health hazards on a daily basis. Therefore, ICU nurses must understand the mechanisms and pathways of exposure to workplace environmental health hazards, basic prevention and control strategies. Aim of the study was two folds aim; first to assess occupational health hazards and second to assess environmental health hazards among ICU nurses working at intensive care units in one of Cairo university hospitals. Design: a descriptive research design was adopted. Sample: A convenient sample of (100) ICU nurses was selected. Setting: Intensive care units at Kasr Al Aini teaching hospital. Tools of the study; self reported questionnaire about occupational health hazards and environmental observational checklist were used. Results revealed that, ICU nurses aged from 21-53 years old with a mean age of 30.6 ± 7.5 years. Regarding gender of ICU nurses, 67 % of ICU nurses were females. It was also found that 42 % of nurses got injuries during their work time, whereas 64 % of them reported sick leave due to occupational diseases (X±SD = 14.50 ± 20.03). Furthermore, 88 %, 91 % 94 % and 91 % of nurses were exposed to needle stick injury (biological hazard), Latex allergy (chemical hazard), chronic musculoskeletal pain (mechanical hazard), and burnout (psychosocial hazard) respectively. Environmental biological and chemical waste disposal were inappropriately disposed in 90 % and 80% of ICUs respectively. Moreover, there was no inventory checklist of hazardous chemicals or guidelines for body mechanics lifting patients in all ICUs