Identification and risk assesment in nurcing care

Theoretical base: Safety of the Healthcare personnel is one of the key aspects in the good and safe care of patients. There are many risks threatening nurses while doing their daily job. It's necessary to perform a detailed identification, analysis and assessment of these risks. These processes lead to improved work life of general nurses and clients' stay in the healthcare facility. Important s of the theoretical part are chapters concerning the accreditation and certification of the healthcare facilities helping to achieve safe environment. Objective: The objective of this study is to identify risks for nurses while performing their medical profession, to analyze the problem of their physical workload, nosocomial infections and the risk of sharps injuries. Another objective is to describe preventive mechanisms of compliance with work safety standards and how they are perceived by nurses. The main objective is to analyze the overall standpoint of nurses towards risks in a way to show their individual perception. Methods: Form of qualitative research was chosen with in-depth interviews in order to fully understand risk perception of nurses. Thanks to using the pre-prepared thoughtful open questions, a number of extensive answers could be collected that illustrate various themes of work. After processing the interviews a subsequent coding and categorization of data took place. These categories have also been used for a survey of the results in the discussion. Participants: Intentionally ten nurses of different ages, length of service, department, and finally, opinions and standpoints have been chosen. Interviewed nurses are working in one of the hospitals in Central Bohemia. Size of the study sample was determined by theoretical saturation of data. Results: The results of the research are divided into seven categories, according to the data. Nurses are aware of the risks they face. They are able to name, describe risky behavior and prevention mechanisms that prevent the onset of these risks. Nurses demonstrated basic knowledge regarding nosocomial infections, but in the barrier care there is still room for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and approaches that can help to reduce the frequency of nosocomial infections. Nurses are also aware of the risks that arise from excessive physical workload and they tend to eliminate them through sports. Another risk that nurses realized and considered as the most threatening, is the risk of sharp objects injuries. Although aware of this fact, the research shows that nurses do not comply with the preventive measures, despite they know them. Nurses have a rather negative attitude towards training regarding health and safety at work. This is due to poor quality in processing of such trainings. They have a positive attitude towards education, but they realize that trainings for general nurses which might be interesting are not for free and they take place usually during their free time. Conclusions and recommendations for practice: This work highlights the weak points in this topic and tries to look into the attitudes, feelings and concerns of nurses, which are related to the riskiness of such profession. Nurses should be aware of their importance to society and should take responsibility not only for performed procedures, but also for their own safety. Among the recommendations, which could minimize the risks associated with the performance of nursing profession, is the implementation of rigorous training of health and safety at work and quality of training provided by healthcare facilities