Research on Occupational Health Nursing
The vision of NANDA-I is to be “a global force for the development and use of nursing’s standardized terminology to ensure patient safety through evidence-based care, thereby improving the health care of all people”. As so, NANDA-I includes all contexts of care, considering individuals, families, groups, caregivers and communities internationally. Nursing care is getting wider contexts and complex care. The image of nurses working at the bedside seems outdated, as nurses work in communities, schools, universities, emergency, companies. At the same time, those having compromised health are not only those in a hospital bed. If health is understood as a perceived sense of integral well-being, issues concerning workplace and daily activities are foundational. Occupational health nurses focus on promotion and restoration of health and underline a research opportunity for bringing clinical reasoning into NANDA-I. These are hard times as the COVID-19 pandemic bring true challenges to those that keep working, including nurses. These challenges include “[…] new risks on the job, adapting to novel ways of working, and struggling to cope with the impacts of the pandemic on their health, caregiving responsibilities and livelihoods […]” (United Nations, 2020).
Does NANDA-I include nursing diagnoses that facilitate occupational health nurses work? Is there a gap that requires research to improve evidence on this topic? The United Nations Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery urges that “[…] researchers help to ensure that the pandemic recovery entrenches the principles of decent work by examining how new workplace risks and arrangements impact health and productivity […]. To address the needs of all workers, the unique experiences of young workers, older workers and workers with disabilities, among others, must be taken into account (United Nations, 2020). NANDA-I is open to get more research also on that.
United Nations. UN Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery Leveraging the Power of Science for a More Equitable, Resilient and Sustainable Future. 2020. Available from: https://www.un.org/en/pdfs/UNCOVID19ResearchRoadmap.pdf. Accessed 2021 Dec 12.
By: Silvia Caldeira, Director of Research, NANDA International and Camila Takao Lopes, Director of Diagnosis, NANDA International