[Current status of employment and labor of occupational nurses in external agencies for industrial health].

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this study were to survey the actual conditions of the employment status and activities of occupational health nurses who are employed in Japanese Industrial Health Organizations (IHOs), and to investigate whether the OHNs provide quality health services to employees. We mailed 1,780 questionnaires to nurses who belong to 92 IHOs (members of the National Federation of Industrial Health Organizations). A total of 976 questionnaires were returned (54.8% valid response rate) and 968 questionnaires were considered eligible for analysis. The results showed the following issues 1) most public health nurses belonged to the department of occupational health service, but they did not have enough experience with industrial hazards or workers safety or health; 2) public health nurses want to participate more directly in care for workers; 3) Public Health Nurses provided health counseling in the charge of their enterprises, but they did not take managerial roles, including place-of-work patrol, attendance to safety, and health committees in their workplaces; 4) they were not satisfied with the present roles demanded by the other staff and their managers; 5) they did not have enough opportunities to attend the job training. Together, the results of this study suggest that the OHNs in IHOs need to have more opportunities to perform their expertise in industrial health & safety and job training in order to provide autonomous health services to the workers.