Emergency Response Role of Occupational Health Nurses: Investigation of Actual Conditions of Nurses Working in Companies

Introduction
Appropriate responses to emergencies in real life situations are essential in order to increase the rate at which victims are saved from death as well as to minimize the extent of their injuries and diseases. In Japan, there is no standardized emergency response educational program for occupational health nurses (OHNs). An investigation of actual conditions was conducted in order to develop an educational program for OHNs.

Methods
The research design was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey sent via mail. Subjects of the research were 688 nurses working in companies. The questionnaire items were as follows: attributes, company’s systems for emergency response, emergency response duties carried out by the nurses (their present role), duties that the nurses thought they should be carrying out (their ideal role), and examples of accidents in workplaces. This study was approved by the ethics committee of our university.

Results
There were 347(50.4%)valid responses. The mean age of respondents was 45.3±8.5 years with 15.4±8.5 years of occupational health nursing experience. Ten items showed a significant difference among the 15 questionnaire items comparing the existing emergency response role of nurses’ with their ideal role. All of the 10 items demonstrated that the ideal role was significantly higher than the existing role(Chi-square test).

Discussion
Survey results showed that in addition to their own training, OHNs consider that their roles should include development of an emergency response system within the workplace and carrying out training for employees; however, in reality such roles are not fulfilled. Future tasks include clarification of factors underlying the discrepancy between the actual role of nurses’ and their ideal roles as well as incorporation of these into an educational program.