Investigating the effect of adverse working conditions on the incidence of spontaneous abortion in the staff of operating room and nursing departments of Isfahan's educational hospitals: A descriptive analytical retrospective study

Among working women, health care professionals are more exposed to environmental factors and adverse working conditions than women working in other occupations. A large group of health professionals are nurses and operating room staff who provide services in hospitals. For this purpose, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of adverse working conditions on the incidence of spontaneous abortion in the staff of operating room and nursing departments of Isfahan educational hospitals.

This descriptive study was conducted on 300 women working in nursing wards and operating room in educational hospitals in Isfahan from 2017 to 2018. The data collection tool was a questionnaire. The questionnaire collected demographic and fertility information, occupational status, and adverse pregnancy outcomes during the last pregnancy. Data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 16) and T-test, X2 and Mann-Whitney tests. P value less than 0.05 was considered significant.

In this study, 13 (8.7%) of women working in the operating room and 12 (8.1%) of women working in the nursing department had a history of spontaneous abortion in the last pregnancy, which was not statistically significant (p=0.85). 111 operating room staff (74%) stood for more than 3 hours, 42 (28.1%) worked more than 44 hours per week, and 57 (38%) experienced a restless environment with almost constant noise. The operating room group was relatively more exposed to anesthetic gases (98%), sterilizing agents (94%) and x-rays (97%), which was statistically significant (p <0.05). Despite differences in most adverse work situations, there was no significant difference in spontaneous abortion between the two groups (p = 0.85).

Regarding the frequency of undesirable situations in both groups, especially the operation room group, there was no significant difference in the incidence of spontaneous abortion in the two groups. Therefore, it is suggested that a similar study should be carried out with a larger number of samples and, if possible, at national level and as a prospective cohort.