Personal Safety for Nurses

Excerpt

In this chapter, we have focused on the major injury and safety issues for working nurses. Some of these issues have been thoroughly researched, with extensive evidence-based findings available for epidemiology and prevention, whereas others remain to be studied and explained. As indicated, there is great potential for preventing nurse injury, even though many risk factors have yet to be addressed. The benefits of improvements to nurse safety are great, both for retaining nurses and attracting new nurses into the profession. For example, work hours that are excessive adversely affect nurses’ health and thus can in turn adversely impact patient care. As many facilities are making important financial investments and system-level improvements to promote patient safety, it is important to leverage these efforts to improve worker safety as well. In the long run, these improvements will also benefit patients, as measures that are taken to improve safety for nurses should lead to a healthier and more effective workforce.