1Post Graduate Student, Department of Community Health, St John's Medical College, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
2Associate Professor, Department of Community Health, St John's Medical College, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
3Professor, Department of Community Health, St John's Medical College, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
*Corresponding Author: Dr Suguna A, Department of Community Health, St John's Medical College, Bangalore-560034, Karnataka, India, Email: sugucommed87@gmail.com
Online published on 4 June, 2019.
Quality of care for hospital patients is strongly linked to the performance of nursing staff. In line with this, creating a healthy work environment for nurses is crucial to maintaining an adequate nursing workforce.
To assess the morbidity profile of nurses in a tertiary care hospital over a period of six months.
A longitudinal descriptive study was undertaken in a private tertiary care hospital in Bangalore for a period of six months (November 2013-April 2014). After receiving institutional ethical clearance, nursing staff were enrolled into the study (n= 287) and their health status was assessed periodically to pick up the incidence of various morbidities.
Incidence rate of acute morbidity among nurses over a period of six months was 34.22 episodes per 100 person months. About 54.7% of the illnesses were infectious in nature, nearly 30.6% were musculoskeletal disorders, 1.6% had allergic reactions and 1% had needle stick injury. Among the nurses, diabetes was found to be the commonest chronic morbidity with a prevalence rate of 4.9% followed by hypertension and menstrual irregularities.
Infectious diseases and musculo-skeletal disorders were found to be common acute morbidities; Inclusion in Educational training programs of specific issues like sensitizing and motivating about the use of personal protective measures, awareness regarding common universal precautions andon ergonomic issues might help in reducing morbidity and mortality.
Morbidities, Nurses
