Workplace Hazards Faced by Nursing Assistants in the United States: A Focused Literature Review

AnnMarie Lee Walton and Bonnie Rogers
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AnnMarie Lee Walton: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, 4008 Carrington Hall, CB# 7460, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Bonnie Rogers: North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, 1700 Airport Road Rm 343, CB# 7502, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-25

Abstract: Nursing assistants (NAs) make up a large share of the healthcare provider workforce and their numbers are expected to grow. NAs are predominantly women who earn a low wage and report financial, work, and family demands. Working as a NA is hazardous; this manuscript specifically examines the biological/infectious, chemical, enviromechanical, physical and psychosocial hazards that appear in the literature to date. A focused search strategy was used to review literature about hazards that fell into each of the five aforementioned domains. While some hazards that were documented were clear, such as exposure to influenza because of close contact with patients (biological/infectious), or exposure to hazardous drugs (chemical), literature was limited. The majority of the literature we reviewed fell into the domain of psychosocial hazards and centered on stress from workplace organization issues (such as mandatory overtime, lack of managerial support, and feeling rushed). More research is needed to understand which hazards NAs identify as most concerning and tailored interventions are needed for risk mitigation.

Keywords: nursing assistants; workplace hazards; occupational health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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