A framework for occupational health risk assessment of nursing personnel in Indian healthcare system

Abstract

Nursing personnel are exposed to different kinds of health hazards because of various job characteristics and complex work systems. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze the risk factors related to occupational health hazards of nurses in the Indian healthcare system. A three-phase methodology is used to assess occupational risk factors. Through literature review and opinions of experienced nursing personnel, the risk factors such as biological, chemical, ergonomic, physical, and psychosocial are identified and evaluated based on three parameters i.e., the effect of exposure, exposure period and exposure probability. The weights of the parameters are determined by Best-Worst Method (BWM) and the Fuzzy VIKOR method is considered to rank the risk factors in accordance with their level of severity. Biological and ergonomic risk factors are found to have higher levels of adverse effects in all the wards of Indian hospitals whereas, impact of chemical, physical and psychosocial risk factors varied from ward to ward. The risk assessment framework as developed helps to categorize risk factors from high degree to moderate degree, which might help to prepare an action plan to mitigate the risks associated with nursing activities in order to improve their health and safety status at the hospital.

Keywords:

• BWM
• fuzzy VIKOR
• healthcare
• nursing personnel
• occupational risk factor

Disclosure statement

All the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest in this research.

Consent and approval statement

The study is approved by a local institutional review board (IRB). Informed consent was obtained from each subject who participated in the study.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Rahul Mondal

Rahul Mondal is a research scholar in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His area of research is Occupational health of Healthcare personnel.

Pradip Kumar Ray

Pradip Kumar Ray is currently Emeritus Professor at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and advisor at Vinod Gupta School of Management at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He is a well-known researcher in the area of Healthcare Management Systems, Human Factors Engineering, Inventory Management, Productivity Management and Quality Management.