The classic image of a nurse sitting in a hospital with a clipboard has already been put aside. Nowadays, nurses are engaged in healthcare promotion among all the spheres of life. They serve as a bridge for the dialogue between people and healthcare systems as they directly communicate with workers about awareness in case of different emergencies. The most vulnerable social group in terms of this awareness is people who work at industrial factories. The purpose of this paper is to examine the public setting of workers’ injury prevention and education as well as to define the role of a nurse in this setting.
Community Setting
People who work at factories are at constant risk of being injured as they do not always follow the safety rules. Sometimes, due to the dangerous factory environment workers may have the higher chance of getting a chronic disease. All these aspects are the responsibility of an occupational health nurse (Topcu & Ardahan, 2019). In terms of this setting, their job has a set of services they should provide during the work.
The first service implies providing workers with education on their rights guaranteed by the healthcare system and their constant support. Such assistance may be expressed through hotlines and regular meetings with workers held by a nurse. The second service is the creation of proper set of safety rules for workers in order to eliminate the injury risk. Last but not least, the occupational health nursing setting is taking care of workers and being always available in case of any emergency.
Health Promotion Nursing Intervention
The nurses’ contribution to the overall healthcare system is often underestimated or taken for granted. Various researchers claim that the main benefit of nursing is the communication with patients on a more personal level. In such a way, nurses collect the data, crucial for further development of treatment planning (Castellan, Sluga, and Spina, 2015). The nurses are also critical in maintaining and follow-up of the workers’ condition in case of sick leave or hospitalization.
Speaking of treatment and consultancy of workers, nurses’ interventions are important in a lot of ways. First of all, nurses take the responsibility of the regular follow-up of their working conditions to assure they are totally harmless. They also provide them with all the necessary leaflets and materials with general information on injury prevention and safety. Secondly, the occupational health nurse is important in terms of advocacy of safety and labor protection. These aspects are of great importance when it comes to supporting appropriate conditions in the workplace as well as the promotion of general injury prevention.
Professional Nursing Organization
There are a lot of nursing organizations that are responsible for dealing with various occupational health services. When it comes to the people who work at factories, there is a specific professional nursing organization called American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, which was founded in 1941 (“About AAOHN,” 2019). The main idea of this association is to bring together the occupational health nurses in order to establish high-quality safety standards for employees all across the US.
The organization itself deals with encouraging local communities to take action in the movement for appropriate health care and labor protection for the employees. Another important aspect of this association is the organization of various conferences and meetings to discuss and improve current occupational health system. The association is supported by the US government and is a serious part of the country’s overall healthcare system.
Summary
The issue of nurses’ participation in occupational health services is now of great importance for various medical researches. This paper has shown that the intervention of nursing in the community setting of employees’ injury prevention is of vital significance for further development of the issue. Thus, nurses, who directly inform and communicate with the workers, promote the government’s awareness on the topic and collect the data for further treatment innovations in the occupational sphere, need more recognition and support.
References
American Association of Occupational Health Nurses. (2019). About AAOHN. Web.
Castellan, C., Sluga, S, & Spina E. (2015). Nursing diagnoses, outcomes and interventions as measures of patient complexity and nursing care requirement in the Intensive Care Unit. Informing Practice and Policy Worldwide through Research and Scholarship. 72(6), 1273-1286.
Topcu, S., & Ardahan, M. (2019). Occupational health nursing and pioneer leaders from past to present. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 19(3), 1931-1935.