Current status of collaboration with public health services by occupational health nurses, and related factors

Abstract

The Japanese government launched a project to facilitate collaboration between public health services and occupational health services with the aim of promoting overall health and wellbeing. However, collaboration at the practitioner level, including professionals who develop health support activities, has not yet been achieved. This study was conducted to clarify the actual state of collaboration between public health services and occupational health nurses as well as the factors related to their experiences with such collaboration. It also aimed to gather suggestions for promoting collaboration between occupational health nurses and public health and occupational health services. A self-administered questionnaire-based survey was conducted in 2017, targeting 2,574 occupational health nurses belonging to the Japan Society for Occupational Health. Survey items included basic attributes, recognition of the need for collaboration and the reasons behind it, whether or not they had collaboration experience, and self-study and learning experiences. Of the 756 nurses surveyed, 34.0% had experience collaborating with public health services and 80.8% felt such collaboration was necessary. Experience of collaboration was related to the number of years of experience as an occupational health nurse, experience reading guidelines and participating in workshops and study groups organized by public health services, opportunities to receive guidance, and recognition of the need for collaboration. Because only a few respondents had experience collaborating with public health services and some did not even recognize the need for such collaboration, it was deduced that occupational nurses might have few opportunities to collaborate with public health services and may find it difficult to recognize the need for such collaboration. This finding suggests that occupational nurses may be able to promote collaboration with public health services by reinforcing learning from life events. A mechanism should be created to obtain information on public health services. Furthermore, opportunities can be provided for those with experience in collaboration to communicate with those with no experience through specific examples of such teamwork.