Workloads, strain processes and sickness absenteeism in nursing

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the workloads, strain processes and sickness absenteeism among nursing workers from a teaching hospital in the Brazilian Central-West. METHOD: a descriptive and cross-sectional study was developed with a quantitative approach, based on the theoretical framework of the social determination of the health-disease process. Data were collected between January and December 2009, based on records of complaints related to occupational exposure among nursing professionals, filed in the software Monitoring System of Nursing Workers' Health. For the sake of statistical analysis, relative and absolute frequencies of the variables and the risk coefficient were considered. RESULTS: 144 notifications of occupational exposure were registered across the analysis period, which represented 25% of the total nursing population at the hospital. The physiological and psychic workloads were the most representative, corresponding to 37% and 36%, respectively. These notifications culminated in 1567 days of absenteeism for disease treatment. CONCLUSIONS: the findings evidence the impact of occupational illnesses on the absenteeism of nursing workers, and can be used to demonstrate the importance of institutional investments in occupational health surveillance.

Workloads and strain process in Community Health Agents

“…The number of workloads found (140) was higher than the number of health problems (122), showing the interaction of more than a workload in the strain process workers, which is similar to the result of a study conducted with nursing workers at a university hospital (10) .…”

Perception of nursing workers humanization under intensive therapy

“…The precarious working conditions in the public service cause suffering due to impotence regarding the quality of patient care, resulting in job dissatisfaction and disruption in the work process (16,(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) .…”

“…The management of people in the nursing area, in hospital institutions, is extremely important to guarantee sufficient and competent human resources to maintain the quality of care and development of nursing work activities, and it is essential that nursing managers participate actively avoiding work overload, thus increasing patient safety (6,9,16,19,(21)(22) .…”

Saúde dos trabalhadores de enfermagem e a segurança do paciente: o olhar de gerentes de enfermagem*

“…These short periods, when analyzed over the course of 12 months, represent a significant amount of working days lost. Moreover, absences and medical leaves cause not only an impact on workers health, but also on the employer, such as financial loss and a decline in the quality of the services provided (22) . Concerning nursing workers incapability, Brazilian researchers have been describing the severity of physical and/or psychological restrictions, noting that although the labor restrictions are prescribed to keep the worker away from exposure to a certain activity and aggravation of his/ her illness, they have led to a complex situation for the functioning of health services, especially if there is a significant reduction in human resources (4,8) .…”