Cargando…

Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies

BACKGROUND: Healthcare professionals in Taiwan are exposed to a myriad of occupational health and safety hazards, including physical, biological, chemical, ergonomic, and psychosocial hazards. Healthcare professionals working in hospitals and healthcare facilities are more likely to be subjected to...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Che Huei, Lin, Ya-Wen, Lin, Chiu Ming, Yang, Li Chen, Hung, Jong Yi, Wang, Ming Hung, Lin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32523695
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2050312120918999
_version_ 1783536005029036032
author Che Huei, Lin
Ya-Wen, Lin
Chiu Ming, Yang
Li Chen, Hung
Jong Yi, Wang
Ming Hung, Lin
author_facet Che Huei, Lin
Ya-Wen, Lin
Chiu Ming, Yang
Li Chen, Hung
Jong Yi, Wang
Ming Hung, Lin
author_sort Che Huei, Lin
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Healthcare professionals in Taiwan are exposed to a myriad of occupational health and safety hazards, including physical, biological, chemical, ergonomic, and psychosocial hazards. Healthcare professionals working in hospitals and healthcare facilities are more likely to be subjected to these hazards than their counterparts working in other areas. OBJECTIVES: This review aims to assess current research literature regarding this situation with a view to informing policy makers and practitioners about the risks of exposure and offer evidence-based recommendations on how to eliminate or reduce such risks. METHODS: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses review strategy, we conducted a systematic review of studies related to occupational health and safety conducted between January 2000 and January 2019 using MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, PMC, TOXLINE, CINAHL, PLOS One, and Access Pharmacy databases. RESULTS: The review detected 490 studies addressing the issue of occupational health and safety hazards; of these, 30 articles were included in this systematic review. These articles reported a variety of exposures faced by healthcare professionals. This review also revealed a number of strategies that can be adopted to control, eliminate, or reduce hazards to healthcare professionals in Taiwan. CONCLUSION: Hospitals and healthcare facilities have many unique occupational health and safety hazards that can potentially affect the health and performance of healthcare professionals. The impact of such hazards on healthcare professionals poses a serious public health issue in Taiwan; therefore, controlling, eliminating, or reducing exposure can contribute to a stronger healthcare workforce with great potential to improve patient care and the healthcare system in Taiwan. Eliminating or reducing hazards can best be achieved through engineering measures, administrative policy, and the use of personal protective equipment. IMPLICATIONS: This review has research, policy, and practice implications and provides future students and researchers with information on systematic review methodologies based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses strategy. It also identifies occupational health and safety risks and provides insights and strategies to address them.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7235655
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher SAGE Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-72356552020-06-09 Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies Che Huei, Lin Ya-Wen, Lin Chiu Ming, Yang Li Chen, Hung Jong Yi, Wang Ming Hung, Lin SAGE Open Med Systematic Review BACKGROUND: Healthcare professionals in Taiwan are exposed to a myriad of occupational health and safety hazards, including physical, biological, chemical, ergonomic, and psychosocial hazards. Healthcare professionals working in hospitals and healthcare facilities are more likely to be subjected to these hazards than their counterparts working in other areas. OBJECTIVES: This review aims to assess current research literature regarding this situation with a view to informing policy makers and practitioners about the risks of exposure and offer evidence-based recommendations on how to eliminate or reduce such risks. METHODS: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses review strategy, we conducted a systematic review of studies related to occupational health and safety conducted between January 2000 and January 2019 using MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, PMC, TOXLINE, CINAHL, PLOS One, and Access Pharmacy databases. RESULTS: The review detected 490 studies addressing the issue of occupational health and safety hazards; of these, 30 articles were included in this systematic review. These articles reported a variety of exposures faced by healthcare professionals. This review also revealed a number of strategies that can be adopted to control, eliminate, or reduce hazards to healthcare professionals in Taiwan. CONCLUSION: Hospitals and healthcare facilities have many unique occupational health and safety hazards that can potentially affect the health and performance of healthcare professionals. The impact of such hazards on healthcare professionals poses a serious public health issue in Taiwan; therefore, controlling, eliminating, or reducing exposure can contribute to a stronger healthcare workforce with great potential to improve patient care and the healthcare system in Taiwan. Eliminating or reducing hazards can best be achieved through engineering measures, administrative policy, and the use of personal protective equipment. IMPLICATIONS: This review has research, policy, and practice implications and provides future students and researchers with information on systematic review methodologies based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses strategy. It also identifies occupational health and safety risks and provides insights and strategies to address them. SAGE Publications 2020-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7235655/ /pubmed/32523695 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2050312120918999 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Systematic Review
Che Huei, Lin
Ya-Wen, Lin
Chiu Ming, Yang
Li Chen, Hung
Jong Yi, Wang
Ming Hung, Lin
Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title_full Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title_fullStr Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title_full_unstemmed Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title_short Occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in Taiwan: A systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
title_sort occupational health and safety hazards faced by healthcare professionals in taiwan: a systematic review of risk factors and control strategies
topic Systematic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32523695
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2050312120918999
work_keys_str_mv AT chehueilin occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies
AT yawenlin occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies
AT chiumingyang occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies
AT lichenhung occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies
AT jongyiwang occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies
AT minghunglin occupationalhealthandsafetyhazardsfacedbyhealthcareprofessionalsintaiwanasystematicreviewofriskfactorsandcontrolstrategies