Description

The Risk Assessment Survey for Home Healthcare Nurses (RASHHN) is a risk assessment instrument designed to identify and evaluate occupational hazards encountered by nurses while providing healthcare services in patients’ homes.

Home healthcare presents distinctive occupational safety challenges because care is delivered in environments that are not primarily designed as professional healthcare settings. Consequently, home healthcare nurses may encounter a range of physical, biological, psychological, and environmental hazards while performing their professional duties.

The RASHHN provides a systematic framework for assessing these risks and can contribute to a clearer understanding of working conditions that may affect the health and safety of nurses providing care in home environments.

Risk Categories

According to the description of the instrument, the RASHHN addresses several categories of occupational risk.

Physical Risks include hazards that may contribute to accidents or injuries during the provision of care, including risks associated with equipment, tools, and other physical conditions encountered in the home.

Biological Risks include potential exposure to infections and hazards associated with waste handling and other biological materials.

Psychological Risks include occupational stress, work-related fatigue, and other psychological demands associated with providing healthcare in home settings.

Environmental Risks concern characteristics of the patient’s home and surrounding environment that may affect worker safety, including household safety conditions and potential exposure to criminal activity.

Objective

The primary objective of the RASHHN is to provide a systematic approach to assessing occupational risks associated with home healthcare and thereby contribute to improving the health and safety of nurses working in these settings.

By identifying and evaluating different sources of occupational risk, the instrument can help characterize the conditions under which home healthcare nurses perform their duties and identify areas in which greater attention to workplace safety may be required.

Data Analysis and Use

RASHHN data can be used to examine the different categories of occupational hazards encountered by home healthcare nurses.

Responses may be analyzed overall or according to the individual risk categories described by the instrument. Descriptive statistical methods can be used to summarize perceived levels of risk and identify hazards that receive comparatively higher ratings.

Depending on the design and objectives of a study, researchers may also examine differences in perceived risk across groups of nurses or working conditions.

The resulting information can support a systematic assessment of occupational hazards within home healthcare environments.

Scoring

The RASHHN includes questions addressing physical, biological, psychological, and environmental risks.

According to the available source material, items are generally rated using a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 = Very Low Risk to 5 = Very High Risk.

Higher ratings therefore indicate a higher perceived level of risk for the corresponding hazard or area being assessed.

The available document does not specify the total number of items, an overall score range, validated subscale scoring procedures, or established cut-off values. Consequently, classifications such as “low,” “moderate,” or “high” overall occupational risk should not be created without additional scoring or validation information.

Applications

The RASHHN may be used in research examining occupational health and safety among nurses providing healthcare services in patients’ homes.

Systematic identification of occupational hazards can contribute to understanding the specific safety challenges associated with home healthcare and may help identify working conditions that require greater preventive attention.

The information obtained through risk assessment may also support the development or evaluation of occupational safety strategies, educational initiatives, and organizational measures aimed at reducing workplace hazards.

In research settings, repeated assessments may additionally be used to examine changes in perceived occupational risks over time or following the implementation of safety interventions, provided that such use is consistent with the study design.

References

Gershon, R. R., Pogorzelska, M., Qureshi, K. A., & Stone, P. W. (2007). Home health care patients and safety hazards in the home: Preliminary findings. Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation, 4, 33–47.

Quinn, M. M., Markkanen, P. K., Galligan, C. J., & Kriebel, D. (2009). Identification of hazards and injuries in home healthcare: Development of a new household safety checklist. Journal of Safety Research, 40(1), 1–8.