الفهرس 
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Abstract
Summary
Nurses are the workforce in the ICU and are mostly involved in complex work tasks, such as medication management, organizing the ICU environment, coordinating the work tasks between nursing staff and direct contact with patients while providing care, as well. Nurses are responsible for tasks related to patient care directly, inasmuch as they are the members of the ICU team that are most exposed to the physical workloads. The work environment in the ICU setting poses many occupational hazards.(El-Sayed et al., 2020).
Occupational hazards are risks associated with working in specific occupations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration describe five categories of occupational hazards: physical safety hazards, chemical hazards, biological hazards, physical hazards, and ergonomic risk factors. Physical safety hazards include anything that could lead to injury in a workplace accident. This could be slipping hazards, the operation of machinery, electrical hazards, or any other potentially dangerous condition that could exist in a workplace (Legal Information Institute (LII), 2020).
The latter four hazards are described as OSHA as health hazards. Unlike physical safety hazards, they describe risks of injury after cumulative exposure to a harmful condition or substance rather than a singular accident. Chemical hazards include solvents, adhesives, paints, toxic dusts, among other potentially toxic fumes or acids. Biological hazards include infectious diseases, molds, toxic or poisonous plants, or animal materials. Physical hazards include excessive noise, elevated or low temperatures, or radiation. Ergonomic risk factors include repetitive actions, such as heavy lifting or the use of tools with significant vibration (Legal Information Institute (LII), 202).
Nursing staff face a broad range of occupational hazards exposure than other health care workers because of the nature of nursing responsibilities concerning twenty-four interactions care with the patients, performing invasive and noninvasive nursing procedures such as drug administration, hygienic care positioning, turning and walking patients, etc. Furthermore, nurses being the largest category of health care workers have a critical role to play in the healthcare delivery system. They are at the highest risk of exposure to occupational health hazards among healthcare workers. They routinely come into contact with blood and body fluids, chemicals, radiations, etc. which are very hazardous to their health (Sabra & Morsy, 2020)
Subjects and methods
Research design:
A descriptive exploratory research design was used in this study.
Setting:
This study was conducted at internal medicine intensive care unit affiliated to Ain Shams University hospitals.
Subjects:
A convenient sample of all nurses (50) recruited in previous mentioned setting and accepted to participate in this study.
Tools for data collection:
Tool (I): Nurses self-administrated questionnaire. It was developed to assess demographic characteristics of nurses under study and assess health hazards associated with nursing practice among critical care nurses. It consists of the following parts:
Part I: was concerned with demographic characteristics of nurses under study and include age, gender, marital status, residence, qualification, years of experience
Part II: It was concerned with assessment health hazards, it is classified into three sections
Section I: it was concerned with the assessment of physical hazards, among critical care nurses, mechanical hazards, biological, chemical hazards and radiological hazards
Section II: it was concerned with the assessment of psychological hazards among critical care nurses
Section III: it was concerned with the assessment of social hazards among critical care nurses
Part II: Assessment of Nurses’ knowledge about occupational hazards in the intensive care unit.
It was developed to assess knowledge regarding occupational hazards, it covering knowledge about occupational hazards including definition of occupational health hazards, causes of the occupational health hazards, types of occupational health hazards, symptoms of occupational health hazards, preventive measures to reduce occupational health hazards among intensive care unit nurses.
Tool III: Self-reported nurses questionnaire regarding preventive measures for occupational health hazards among critical care nurses in the intensive care unit . It was developed to assess preventive measures regarding occupational health hazards among critical care nurses in the intensive care unit.
Results
The present study result showed that 58% of the studied nurses are between ages from 20 to less than 30 years old with mean 29.14±6.69 years. Also, 58.0% of the studied nurses are females and 56.0% of them are single. As regard to their qualification, 50% of the studied nurses are technical institute of nursing
Regarding years of experience in nursing, 44.0% of the studied nurses have less than 5 years with mean 6.58±1.41 years, whilst 56.0% of the studied nurses have more than 5 years of experience in critical care nursing with mean 7.24±6.62 years. It was found that 86% of the studied nurses didn’t attend training programs about occupational health hazards.
And found that 58.0% of them have low exposure to physical hazards, while 32.0% of them have moderate exposure and only 10.0% of them have high exposure to physical hazards associated with nursing practice.
The finding reveals that 50.0% of the studied nurses have low exposure to psychological hazards, while 36.0% of them have moderate exposure while 14.0% of the studied nurses have high exposure to psychological hazards.
The finding revealed that 40.0% of the studied nurses have low exposure to social hazards associated with nursing practice, 32.0% of the studied nurses have moderate exposure while 28.0% of them have high exposure to social hazards.
And shows that, 60.0% of the studied nurses have satisfactory level of total knowledge regarding occupational hazards in ICU, while 40.0% of them have unsatisfactory level.
And revealed that, 56% of the studied nurses have inadequate level of total preventive measures regarding occupational hazards in ICU, 44% of them have adequate level of total preventive measures regarding occupational hazards in ICU.
Additionally, there were highly statistically significant positive correlations between their total exposure to physical hazards and their total psychological hazards, total social hazards and total knowledge. Additionally, highly statistically significant positive correlations are found between their total exposure to psychological hazards and their total social hazards and total knowledge. As well highly statistically significant positive correlation exists between their exposure to social, physical, psychological hazards and total knowledge .
Also there is a statistically significant relation are exist between physical hazards and their gender, qualification and years of experience in critical care nursing regarding relationship between demographic characteristics of studied nurses and their total physical hazards.. In addition, a statistically significant relations are exist between psychological hazard and their gender. As well a statistically significant relations are exist are between social hazards and their age and no statistically significant relations are found with their demographic characteristics as regard gender, and attendance of training programs.
Conclusion
In the light of the current study findings, it can be concluded that,
Regarding to exposure to physical hazards, more than half of the studied nurses had low exposure to physical hazards, and only one tenth of them had high exposure to physical hazards associated with nursing practice. Meanwhile half of the studied nurses had low exposure to psychological hazards, more than one tenth of them had high exposure to psychological hazards. Moreover two fifths of the studied nurses had low exposure to social hazards associated with nursing practice; while more than one quarter of them had high exposure to social hazards. Also, less than two thirds of the studied nurses have satisfactory level of total knowledge. Also there are statistically significant relations existed between physical hazards and their gender, qualification and years of experience in critical care nursing. Also statistically significant relations existed between psychological hazard and their gender. As well, statistically significant relations exist between social hazards and their age.
Recommendations
Based on the current study finding the following recommendations were proposed:
Continues in-service educational courses should be held periodically to increase health awareness among nurses to prevent occupational health hazards.
Guidelines, sufficient booklets and posters regarding health hazards and protective measures should be provided and distributed to all medical departments periodically, so that all nursing staff will be able to read and follow it.
Developing organizational guidelines and rules about hazards assessment and identification.
Nurse manager should be develop policies and guidelines of safety practices for critical care nurses
Head nurse should be rise critical care nursing staff awareness regarding social hazards
Further researches
Further prospective studies are recommended to identify the effects of occupational hazards on nurses’ health condition.
Further studies need to be applied on the large sample size of nurses in ICU to ensure generalize of result