Nursing is a high risk profession for injury. A Canadian survey reports many nurses are in poor physical and emotional health; they sustain more musculoskeletal and violence related injuries than other occupational groups. In Ontario, an injury management approach called Early Return to Work (RTW) requires injured workers, including nurses, to go back to work before full recovery. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board cite this approach as beneficial to both the employer and employee. This study uses an institutional ethnographic approach to examine critically the RTW process from the standpoint of injured registered nurses. Through interviews and mapping activities with nurses, other health professionals and managers, a rendering of the social organization of hospital injury management emerges. The findings suggest that the implementation of RTW is complicated and difficult for nurses, their families and hospital employers. Injured nurses engage in significant amounts of domestic, rehabilitation and accommodation work in order to participate in the RTW process. When the returning nurse is unable to engage in full duties hospital operations become disorganized. Collective agreements and human resources procedures limit the participation of injured nurses in creative and/or new roles that could utilize their knowledge and skills. As a result, nurses are assigned to duties, which hamper them from returning to their pre-injury positions and cause their employment with the hospital to be reconsidered. The unsuccessful return of injured nurses to employment is counter to provincial retention initiatives, which seek to sustain an adequate cadre of nurses ready and able to care for the increasing health care needs of an aging population. Sites of change which could support and promote the successful return of these injured workers to nursing work are identified in this study.

Nursing is a high risk profession for injury. A Canadian survey reports many nurses are in poor physical and emotional health; they sustain more musculoskeletal and violence related injuries than other occupational groups. In Ontario, an injury management approach called Early Return to Work (RTW) requires injured workers, including nurses, to go back to work before full recovery. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board cite this approach as beneficial to both the employer and employee. This study uses an institutional ethnographic approach to examine critically the RTW process from the standpoint of injured registered nurses. Through interviews and mapping activities with nurses, other health professionals and managers, a rendering of the social organization of hospital injury management emerges. The findings suggest that the implementation of RTW is complicated and difficult for nurses, their families and hospital employers. Injured nurses engage in significant amounts of domestic, rehabilitation and accommodation work in order to participate in the RTW process. When the returning nurse is unable to engage in full duties hospital operations become disorganized. Collective agreements and human resources procedures limit the participation of injured nurses in creative and/or new roles that could utilize their knowledge and skills. As a result, nurses are assigned to duties, which hamper them from returning to their pre-injury positions and cause their employment with the hospital to be reconsidered. The unsuccessful return of injured nurses to employment is counter to provincial retention initiatives, which seek to sustain an adequate cadre of nurses ready and able to care for the increasing health care needs of an aging population. Sites of change which could support and promote the successful return of these injured workers to nursing work are identified in this study.

The study was designed to identify current levels of corporate health promotion and nutrition activities and to highlight the need for continued health promotion activities, in particular nutrition education, throughout corporate America.Five hundred surveys were mailed to the Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States. One hundred and twenty-one were completed, yielding a 24% sample for analysis.The wellness/health promotion activities reported to be a part of corporate wellness programs included exercise, nutrition education, CPR training, stress management and intramural sports. It appeared that size of the corporation influenced the nutrition promotion provided at the worksite. There appeared to be no difference between CEO support or lack of support to the wellness/health promotion program and the variety of health promotion activities. It was apparent that having a nutrition consultant resulted in greater and more varied nutrition health promotion activities at the worksite, and that in the future, America's Fortune 500 companies will need to hire a nutrition professional to disseminate nutrition and health promotion information at the worksite. / Institute for Wellness

Buller är ett stort arbetsmiljöproblem, som kan leda till ohälsa. Det är viktigt att personal som i sitt arbete löper risk för hörselskador använder hörselskydd. Studiens syfte var att beskriva och jämföra användning av hörselskydd bland personal som arbetar i bullrig arbetsmiljö inom verkstadsindustrin. Studien var en tvärsnittsstudie med en deskriptiv och komparativ design. Data samlades in med hjälp av en enkät. Det var 127 personer som besvarade enkäten. Stu-diedeltagarnas medelålder var 45 år. Majoriteten, 101 personer hade arbetat i bullrig arbets-miljö i mer än 10 år. Det framkom att 48 personer i studien upplevde att de hade hörselned-sättning. Majoriteten hade fått information om risk för hörselskador vid arbete i bullrig miljö. Det fanns en statistiskt signifikant skillnad när det gäller val av hörselskydd mellan avdel-ningar med olika bullernivåer. Studien visade ingen signifikant skillnad vid val av hörsel-skydd beroende på upplevt buller. Det vanligast förekommande hörselskyddet var kåpor. De som använde formgjutna proppar gav dessa det bästa betyget. Den mest vanligt förekomman-de anledningen till att inte hörselskydd användes av personalen var att de arbetade endast del av arbetstid i buller. Denna kunskap kan ligga till grund för företagssköterskans information avseende val/användande av hörselskydd. / Noise is a major problem in the working environment and may result in impaired health. It is important that personnel which are at risk of developing hearing damage use ear protective devices. This study aimed to and describe compare the usage of ear protec-tive devices among personnel working in a noisy environment within the industrial manufacturing. The study was a cross-sectional study with descriptive and comparative design. Data was collected in the form of a questionnaire, which 127 persons participat-ed in. The mean age of the participants was 45 years. The majority, 101 persons, had been working within a noisy working environment for more than 10 years. It appeared that 48 of the respondents experienced a hearing impairment. The majority of the partic-ipants had received information concerning the risk of developing hearing damage when working in a noisy environment. There was a statistically significant difference in the choice of ear protective device between departments with different noise levels . This study showed no significant difference in the choice of ear protective device due to ex-perienced noise. The ear protective device most common used was earmuffs. The re-spondents that used molded plugs rated these highest. The most frequent motive against using ear protective devices among the participants was the fact that they only spent part of the working day in a noisy environment. This knowledge may form a basis for the occupational health nurse’s information regarding choice/usage of ear protective devices.

The following study explores the relation between psychosocial work environment and individual health. The purpose is to examine how female employees in the occupational health sector experience their own psychosocial work environment, focusing on different influencing factors in both the workplace and their private life regarding the employees own health. The study applies a hermeneutic approach in which qualitative interviews constitute the empirical data. Previous research on this particular subject has focused on the following themes: the combination of work-family life, demand/control model and flexibility in the workplace in relation to health and stress. The theoretical framework used in this study integrates relevant concepts, specifically SOC, poor leadership and flexibility. The main findings of this study are three fundamental themes prevalent in the employees experience of health and stress: meeting the demands of the psychosocial work environment, the psychosocial work environment related to balance in everyday life  and the managements role of the psychosocial work environment. One major contribution on the research on psychosocial work environment and work-life balance is that the results presented underline the importance of a female perspective on welfare and individual wellness.

Studiens syfte är att belysa enhetschefers upplevelser och värderingar av samarbetet med en företagshälsovård angående upprepad korttidsfrånvaro. Kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer användes. Tio enhetschefer i två kommuner intervjuades och resultatet bygger på deras subjektiva upplevelser. I studien framkom att enhetscheferna generellt anser att grundtanken i samarbetet är bra med en bra struktur. Enhetscheferna har sedan länge själva arbetat med den upprepade korttidsfrånvaron och det är även de som bedömer vilka medarbetare som hänvisas till företagshälsovården. Arbetet med korttidsfrånvaron uppges ta mycket tid och enhetscheferna får ofta prioritera detta arbete på bekostnad av andra arbetsuppgifter. Företagshälsovårdens roll uppges vara av rådgivande och vägledande karaktär samt att de ska fungera som ett stöd för cheferna i deras roller. Enhetscheferna uppger att det är svårt att se tydliga resultat, i fråga om minskad korttidsfrånvaro som en konsekvens av samarbetet. / The purpose of this study is to illustrate how unit managers perceive and value collaboration with an occupational health company in the case of repeated short-term absence. Qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used. Ten unit managers from two municipalities were interviewed and the result is based on their experiences. The study found that the unit managers generally believe that the spirit of cooperation is good and that it has a good structure. The unit managers has been handling the repeated short-term absence on their own for a long time, and they are also the ones who  are assessing which employees are to be referred to occupational health services. This work is said to take a lot of time and the unit managers may, in their role often give priority to the determent of other tasks. The occupational health company’s role is said to be of an advisory and guiding nature and that they will last as a support to the unit managers in their roles. The unit managers find it hard to see any results, in terms of reduced short-term absenteeism, referred to the cooperation.

En stor del av dagens sjukskrivningar beror på psykisk ohälsa och fysisk inaktivitet och har blivit ett folkhälsoproblem. Stress beror av relationen mellan individ och miljö, där individens självuppfattning och verklighetsupplevelse är av betydelse för upprätthållandet av välbefinnande. Stress uppkommer av flera olika orsaker, stressorer, vilka skiljer sig människor emellan. Fysisk aktivitet har visat sig ha en positiv inverkan både i att förebygga och behandla stress och företagssköterskan kan genom hälsorådgivning ha en betydande roll för yrkesverksammas fysiska aktivitetsutövande. Syftet med studien var att beskriva den fysiska aktivitetens betydelse för den upplevda stressnivån bland anställda inom ett kommunalt energi- och vattenbolag. Kvantitativ metodik med enkätundersökning användes, där 34 av 39 personer valde att medverka. Resultatet analyserades med beskrivande statistik och det visade sig finnas indikationer på att de äldre arbetstagarna var mest stressade. Yrkesverksamma som ägnade en stor del åt mycket ansträngande fysisk aktivitet upplevde mindre stress. Studien visade även att en majoritet av dem som bedömdes vara stressade var stillasittande. Fysisk aktivitet tycktes också medförda positiva upplevelser som en bättre självkänsla och en mer positiv syn på livet. Det finns behov av ytterligare studier för att säkrare slutsatser ska kunna dras. / Many of today’s sick leaves are caused by psychological illness and lack of physical activity has become a public health problem. Stress is depending on the relation between the person and the environment, where self-perception and experience of reality are important for maintaining well-being. Causes of stress, stressors, can be many and vary from individual to individual.  Physical activity has shown to have a positive effect in both preventing and treating perceived stress and the occupational nurse can, through health counselling, have an important role to play in changing exercising habits among workers. The purpose of the study was to describe the physical activity’s importance for the experienced stress level among the employees of a municipal energy and water company. Quantitative method with questionnaires was used, where 34 of 39 workers chose to participate. The result was analyzed with descriptive statistics and indicated that the older employees were the most stressed. Workers who devoted much time to intense exercising experienced less stress. The study also showed that the vast majority of workers who were stressed were sedentary. Physical activity seemed to give positive experiences like better self-esteem and a more positive way of looking at life. Further studies would be needed for more definitive conclusions.

Problem Statement: The burden of musculoskeletal injuries among workers is very high, particularly so in direct care workers involved in patient handling. Efforts to reduce injuries have shown mixed results. Strong evidence for intervention effectiveness is lacking.<p> Specific Aims: The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a patient handling injury prevention program implemented in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) comparing it with a non-randomized control group, Regina QuAppelle Health Region (RQHR), in a pre-post design. Injury rates, lost-time days, and claim costs were the outcomes of interest.<p> Intervention: A Transfer, Lifting and Repositioning (TLR) program, consisting of engineering and administrative ergonomic controls, was implemented in SHR hospitals from 2002-2005.<p> Methods: Data on time loss and non-time loss injuries, lost time days, and claims costs were collected from the SHR and RQHR for corresponding time periods one year pre and one year post-intervention. Age, length of service, profession, and sex were selected as covariates. Full Time Equivalents (FTE) data were collected for each time period. Univariate and multivariate Poisson regression were performed.<p> Results: Rates for all injuries (number of injuries/100 FTE) dropped from 14.68 pre-intervention to 8.1 post-intervention. Control group all injury rates, while overall lower in absolute value, dropped to a lesser degree, from 9.29 to 8.4. Time loss injury rates decreased from 5.3 to 2.51 in the SHR, while they actually increased from 5.87 to 6.46 in the RQHR, for the same intervention periods. Poisson regression showed the greatest reduction in injury rate, both time loss (Rate ratio=0.48, 95% C.I: 0.34-0.68) and non-time loss (Rate Ratio=0.25, 95% C.I: 0.15-0.41) in the smaller long term care facility controlling for hospital size. Analysis of injury rates, incidence rate ratios, and incidence rate differences showed significant differences between the intervention and comparison group for all injuries and time loss injuries. Mean claim cost/injury decreased from $3906.20 to $2200.80 and mean time loss days/claim decreased from 35.87 days to 16.23 days for the SHR.<p> Conclusions: The study provides evidence for the effectiveness of a multi-factor TLR program for direct-care health workers, and emphasizes their implementation, especially in smaller hospitals.

Arbetsplatsen är en arena där det finns goda möjligheter att arbeta hälsofrämjande. Inom äldreomsorgen finns det både utmaningar och möjligheter när det gäller att förändra arbetssituationen och på så vis förbättra de anställdas hälsa. För att underlätta detta arbete kan arbetsplatsen ta hjälp av externa samarbetspartners, till exempel företagshälsovården. Syftet med studien var att ta reda på hur de anställda inom äldreomsorgen i en kommun i södra Sverige uppfattar att samarbetet kring hälsofrämjande insatser mellan deras arbetsplats och företagshälsovården fungerar. Datainsamlingsmetoden som användes i denna studie var enkäter utdelade till alla 345 fast anställda. Svarsfrekvensen blev 49 procent. Resultatet visade att personalen uppfattade samarbete mellan chefen och företagshälsovården som bra men att det var obefintligt mellan dem själva och företagshälsovården. De anställda anser att samarbetet kan utvecklas genom bättre kommunikation och information. Slutsatsen som dras i denna studie är att cheferna bör tydligöra företagshälsovårdens roll i det hälsofrämjande arbetet. Genom välfungerande kommunikation och bra informationsspridning kan samarbetet mellan cheferna, de anställda och företagshälsovården förbättras. / The workplace is an arena where there are good opportunities to work health promotive. In the elderly care, there are both challenges and opportunities when it comes to changing the work situation and thereby improve the employees’ health. To facilitate this work, the workplace can take the help of external partners, such as the occupational health service. The purpose of this study was to find out how the employees of the elderly care in a municipality in southern Sweden perceive the cooperation between their workplace and the occupational health service when it comes to working health promotive. The data collection method used in this study was questionnaires distributed to all 345 of the permanently employed. The response rate was 49 percent. The results showed that the employees perceived that the cooperation between managers and the occupational health service was good, but that it was non-existent between themselves and the occupational health service. The staff has the opinion that the cooperation can be developed through better communication and information. The conclusion of this study is that managers should clarify the occupational health service´s role in the health promotive work. Through effective communication and good methods of spreading information, the cooperation between managers, employees and the occupational health service can be improved.

This thesis aims an analysis of early Republican state factory settlements, in terms of their concern for workers&amp / #8217 / health and welfare, within Turkish modernization in the largest extent. State factory settlements are evaluated in terms of their architectural program(s), in terms of concern about the physical and mental health requirements of their future workers at the stage of their foundation. Different types of buildings, like workers&amp / #8217 / houses, cafeterias, health centers and clubs, with respect to their organization and architectural function and also areas spared for sports and recreation are examined in EskiSehir Sugar Factory, as an exemplary case of the state factories. The aim has been to reveal and evaluate the role of the social and architectural construction of state factories on workers&amp / #8217 / (and their families) health, as a part of the modernization project of Turkey.