J Korean Community Nurs.  1989 Feb;1(1):186-237.

A Study on the Distribution of Industrial Nursing Personnel in Korea and the Conditions of Industrial Nursing Service Delivery

• Kim SR
• Lee JH

Abstract

This study tried to grasp the conditions of the distribution of industrial nurses working at businesses over the whole country, analyze their job contents based on their functions, and clarify the conditions of workers' use of medical rooms. For this purpose, the current researchers first identified industrial companies from August 1 to October 30 1986, and visited there to have interviews with industrial nurses with a questionnaire and examine medical room journals. Data were also collected from the industrial nurses' own documentation for a week period, and then we yielded the following results. 1. Conditions of the distribution of industrial nurses A total of 282 industrial nurses working for some industrial companies were our subjects, and the number of companies employing them was 272. The actual number of workers per nurse was 1,766. As for the sizes of the companies employing them, 38.6% of the companies employed 1,000 or more workers. The rate of industrial nurse distribution among the industrial companies nationwide is 0.25%. 73% of the nurses worked full-time, 12% held the job as an additional position, and 12% worked part-time. Manufacturing business accounted for the greatest proportion, 73.1%, of the companies. Their average age was 28, and 80% of them graduated polytechnic colleges. 56.8% of them had 1~5 years of experience, and were generally satisfied with their jobs. Their average monthly salary was 350 thousand won and 78.3% of medical rooms were independent. 71.9% of the health managers worked part-time, and most of the employers were positive about industrial nursing. 17.1% of the companies did not have a designated hospital. The accident rate in their companies was 23.8%. 2. Function-based analysis of job contents As a result of the investigation of performance ratios of job contents based on industrial nurses' functions, which were classified into four types, nursing service delivery jobs were most frequently performed with a score of 0.61, which was followed by nursing service running (0.53), environmental management jobs (0.37), and welfare jobs (0.33) in that order. As for nursing service delivery jobs, 100% of them participated in physical examination, health observation, and individual consulting, 97.4% in health status explanation, and 97.1% in emergency treatment and blood pressure measurement. On the other hand, As for performance rates in collective health education, the education of poisonous materials in household medicines was low (41.2%), but the establishment of provision was the lowest (34.3%). As for industrial classification, the performance level was highest in service businesses, which were followed by manufacturing companies, constructions, and financial businesses in that order. With respect to company sizes, businesses employing 300~less than 1,000 workers showed high performance levels. The average daily working time was 9.8 hours, the greatest portion of which was assigned to nursing service delivery (6.1 hours). As for week days, they worked for the longest time on Friday (10.8 hours), and it was Tuesday when they worked for the shortest time (9.6 hours) among other week days. 3. Conditions of Industrial Nursing Service Delivery The monthly frequency rate of medical room use was highest in April and December (8.7%), but lowest in February. The annual frequency of medical room use per worker was 14.9 times maximally and 3.2 times minimally. The average frequency was 4.8 times. As for medical room use frequencies based on company sizes, the tendency was that the smaller a company's size, the more reduced the annual medical room use frequency per worker was. There were no clear features observed on the base of types of businesses. As for week-day based frequencies of medical room use, the workers most frequently use medical rooms on Monday with Saturday and Sunday put aside, and similar aspects were observed among other week days. There were no clear features observed on the base of types and sizes of businesses. Of the main symptoms of workers with health problems who had used medical rooms for the week of investigation, dyspepsia accounted for 14.6%, which was followed by cold (11.4%), traumas (10%), and headache (9.2%) in that order. Even based on business sizes, most of the symptoms included dyspepsia, cold, traumas, and headache in that order. However, with respect to business types, traumas occupied the first place in construction, transportation, and warehouse businesses, and cold ranked first in financial and service businesses. The rate of referral to hospitals for the week of investigation with the patients using medical rooms was 5.5% at the highest estimate and 0.0% at the lowest estimate. The average referral rate was 1.4%. The weekly rate of referral to hospitals based on business sizes was highest in companies with 300~less than 500 workers (2.6%), and lowest in companies with 2,000 or more workers (1.2%). As for business types, the weekly rate of referral to hospitals was highest in construction (5.5%), and lowest in wholesale and retail sales (0.0%).

MeSH Terms

Blood Pressure
Classification
Commerce
Dyspepsia
Education
Emergency Treatment
Family Characteristics
Hand
Hand Strength
Headache
Health Education
Humans
Korea*
Nursing Services
Occupational Health Nursing*
Physical Examination
Referral and Consultation
Running
Salaries and Fringe Benefits
Transportation