Health Risk Assessment in the Occupational Health Nurse’s

Introduction
The occupational health nurse is a qualified registered nurse with a post-graduate qualification in occupational health nursing as a specialised discipline, and provides the basic healthcare aspect of the occupational health programme. The most important activity is to identify and assess the risks of health hazards in the workplace. The health risk assessment is conducted by the occupational health nurse to determine all the stresses, e.g. Hazardous chemicals, vibration, insufficient lighting, noise exposure, thermal exposure, etc., which may affect employees’ health and working efficiency.

Methods
A quantitative, descriptive design was used in this study. A sampling frame is developed from a list of all the members of the South African Society of Occupational Health Nurses (SASOHN) in Gauteng province – South Africa and a systematic cluster sampling method was used. Factor analyses with using Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) are used to confirm the accuracy and reliability of the data.

Results
Four factors were identified: competence, ignorance on the role of the occupational health nurse, workload and attitude.

Discussion
Guidelines were developed to assist the occupational health nurse to conduct a health risk assessment.

Factor 1: Competence : Facilitating competence in order to assist the occupational health nurse in conducting a health risk assessment
Factor 2: Ignorance on the role of the occupational health nurse: Promoting the role of the occupational health nurse to overcome ignorance of the role by management regarding conducting of health risk assessment
Factor 3: Workload: Management of measures to assist the occupational health nurse to cope and understand the workload of the occupational health setting to ensure conducting of a health risk assessment
Factor 4: Attitude: Facilitate a change in the attitude of the occupational health nurse on conducting health risk assessment