Occupational Health Issues Among Employees of Home Care Agencies

Abstract

RÉSUMÉL'objectif de cette communication est d'explorer les problèmes de santé occupationnelle qui touchent les employés des agences de soins à domicile. Les résultats d'un sondage et de groupes de discussion menés auprès de 892 employés de bureau et employés itinérants de trois agences de soins à domicile sans but lucratif montrent que les employés des agences de soins à domicile présentent un degré élevé de stress, de fatigue et d'épuisement. Ce stress relié au travail est particulièrement ressenti par les cadres, les infirmières et les thérapeutes. Lorsqu'on les compare aux résultats de l'Enquête sur la santé des Canadiens, on note que les employées des agences de soins à domicile sont plus susceptibles que la moyenne des travailleuses de souffrir d'allergies, d'asthme, d'arthrite ou de rhumatismes, de problème de dos, de haute pression, de migraines et de blessures reliées au travail. Plusieurs employées d'agences de soins à domicile signalent des douleurs ou des malaises dans plusieurs parties du corps. Les employées itinérantes de ces agences souffrent d'entorses ou de foulures, de luxations, de fractures et d'ecchymoses consécutives au fait qu'elle doivent soulever ou déplacer des patients, se pencher ou forcer, ou qu'elles font des chutes accidentelles. Elles souffrent également davantage de microtraumatismes répétés et ont davantage d'accidents d'automobiles. Le personnel de bureau des agences souffre de microtraumatismes répétés et de problèmes respiratoires. La communication aborde les conséquences pour l'établissement des politiques et la recherche.

Occupational hazards for home care nurses across the rural-to-urban gradient in Ontario, Canada

“…, , National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety ) which can result in stress, exhaustion and burnout (Denton et al . , ). The purpose of this paper was to describe occupational hazards for HC nurses and explore how their prevalence differs across the rural‐to‐urban gradient.…”

Concerns, Satisfaction, and Retention of Canadian Community Health Nurses

“…The client-related concerns include the increasing number of clients and large caseloads (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Chalmers, 1995;Jansen et al, 1996), increasingly complex needs of clients (Chalmers, 1995;Evans, 2002), working with vulnerable families with many problems (Fletcher, Jones, & McGregor-Cheers, 1991;Reutter & Ford, 1996), dealing with difficult clients and uncooperative family members (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Denton, Zeytinoglu, Webb, & Lian, 1999;Jansen et al, 1996;Stewart & Arklie, 1994), and not having sufficient time for client care (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Boswell, 1992;Reutter & Ford, 1996;Shuster, 1992;Stewart & Arklie, 1994). Concerns about working conditions include continual change and uncertainty in programs being offered (Evans, 2002;Kipping & Hickey, 1998), lack of adequate resources (staff, equipment, facilities) to do one's job (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Evans, 2002), time spent traveling to clients and the cost of maintaining a car for work (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Denton et al, 2003), and isolation from one's agency base (Chapin, 1999).…”

“…Concerns about working conditions include continual change and uncertainty in programs being offered (Evans, 2002;Kipping & Hickey, 1998), lack of adequate resources (staff, equipment, facilities) to do one's job (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Evans, 2002), time spent traveling to clients and the cost of maintaining a car for work (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Denton et al, 2003), and isolation from one's agency base (Chapin, 1999). The safety-related concerns deal with physical safety issues such as threats of physical danger or assault; unsafe, unclean clients' homes; and the danger of work-related injuries (Denton et al, 1999(Denton et al, , 2003Fagin, Brown, Bartlett, Leary, & Carson, 1995) as well as psychological distress-the emotional effects of the job (Fagin et al, 1995;Fletcher et al, 1991).…”

“…The retention factors were grouped into three categories: job features, organizational factors, and supportive relationships. The job features include use of skills and abilities (Curreri et al, 1985), autonomy (Cameron, Armstrong-Stassen, Bergeron, & Out, 2004;Denton et al, 1999;Flynn & Deatrick, 2003), participation in decision making (Cameron et al, 2004;Evans, 2002;Lynch, 1994), performance feedback (Braddy, Washburn, & Carroll, 1991;Cameron et al, 2004;Fletcher et al, 1991), meaningfulness of job (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Denton et al, 1999), adequate time to do one's job (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Boswell, 1992;Reutter & Ford, 1996), scheduling flexibility (Baldwin & Price, 1994;Braddy et al, 1991), and work-family balance (Doran et al, 2004;Evans, 2002;Lynch, 1994). The organizational factors include compensation (Doran et al, 2004;Juhl et al, 1993), advancement opportunities (Beall et al, 1994;Chapin, 1999), training and development opportunities (Chapin, 1999), recognition (Cameron et al, 2004;Lucas et al, 1988;Lynch, 1994), and adequate resources (staff, facilities, equipment) to do one's job (Evans, 2002;Fletcher et al, 1991;Flynn & Deatrick, 2003).…”

Self-Reported Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Visiting and Office Home Care Workers

“…Paid work contributes to women's mental health problem of stress (Lippel 1995;Walters and Denton 1997) for all home care workers (Denton, Zeytinoğlu, Webb and Lian 1999), including visiting home care workers (Bartoldus, Gillery and Sturgess 1989;Prentice 1992;Walters et al 1995), female managers (Offerman and Armitage, 1993;Tomiak, Gentleman and Jette 1997;Vinnicombe and Colwill 1995), and clerical and other secretarial workers (Statham and Bravo 1990). Studies show stress to be related to MSDs (Bongers et al 1993;Marcus and Gerr, 1996).…”