Risk factors and impacts of occupational injury in healthcare workers: A critical review

Abstract

Introduction The high-risk, fast-paced healthca-re industry presents unique he-alth and safety challenges for hea-lthcare personnel, including exp-osure to psychological and phys-ical demands resulting in the inci-dence of musculoskeletal injuries of epidemic proportions. The dy-namic healthcare environment demonstrates that workers are prone to injury through a host of factors unique to them being directly involved in patient care. Just as heredity and environment interact to result in disease, no single risk factor is responsible for injury but rather a complex interaction of worker, patient, and hospital characteristics. This critical review reports the risk factors and impact of musculoskeletal injuries, with consideration for how these factors impact the worker, quality of care, and patient outcomes. The intent of this critical review is to summarize current literature, ide-ntify gaps in research, and broaden the questions that are asked as the efforts to reduce occupational inju-ry move forward, not to provide definitive risk factors and impacts for occupational injury. Conclusion The risk factors of occupational injury are well documented; less understood is the impact of elevated incidence of occupational injury on patient safety. Nursing injury rates are linked to nursing shortages and less nursing time at the bedside, both of which have been scientifically linked to negative patient outcomes. Further investigation is needed in this area not only due to the pain and suf-fering experienced by those directly affected, but also because of the or-ganizational impacts that indirectly affect patient care. The benefit of this research is to reveal the integral role the individual worker plays in patient outcomes, despite the quality of care they provide, a finding that could dra-matically change strategic priorities to deliver exemplary patient care and ensure the health and safety of work-ers, patients, and the public.