**3. Conclusion**

OHS aims to minimize occupational accidents and diseases and to keep the health of employees at the best level in all the world. With OHS studies, dangers and risk factors should be determined and controlled at their source. Operating rooms are complex places where the most advanced technology and systems are used and qualified employees work at. The most threatening factors for employee safety in operating rooms are contaminated, sharp object injuries and material splashes. The most common ones are pinprick injuries. Allergies to latex gloves and hand washing solutions in the operating rooms may cause serious problems. Ergonomics is an important yet ignored topic. If the actions such as positioning and lifting patients, transferring patients from the bed to the stretcher and carrying patients are performed without being careful, they may cause serious musculoskeletal problems for employees. Factors such as excessive amount of time spent in work environment, shifts and insufficient number of nurses may cause an increase in work intensity and a decrease in motivation for nurses.

Critical decisions on the lives of patients are taken and applied in operating rooms which have high level of psychological and physical stress. Therefore, they require concordant team work and moderate work environment. Use of too many technological devices, necessity to make fast decisions and risks caused by the nature of the operating rooms also pose some risks for the employees. Nurses working in operating rooms may encounter various risky conditions as explained above. Unsuitable physical environment, heavy physical work, frequent criminal activities, working late at night with fewer people, working in non-physiological positions, non-ergonomic conditions, stress, discomfort, workplace conditions which makes healthy diet difficult, commute problems are factors threatening employee safety. Since numerous factors might have negative effects on the safety and health in operating rooms, risk assessment should be performed and reformativepreventive actions should be taken in order to identify characteristics such as what these factors are, at what level they are present and who they affect. Occupational health problems caused by the risks in the workplace can be reduced and the rates of serious injuries and damages can be decreased with proper and efficient risk management.

Operating room nurses should be trained on subjects such as general environmental pathogens, ergonomics, blood-borne pathogens, protective equipment, radiation safety, fire safety, general safety, use of hazardous material (substances), emergency situation management, protection against airborne diseases, mobile liquefied oxygen, communication and enlightenment on dangers, medical equipment care and safety of tap water.

Primary precautions to reduce exposure to chemical substances include using materials with low danger potential, paying attention to the allowed concentrations, frequently ventilating the environment, hand washing, using personal protective equipment such as aprons and masks, updating old methods and equipment, measuring and monitoring samples taken regularly, biological monitoring. In addition to these, there are many precautions that are customized according to the characteristics and risks of the chemical substances.

Preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative management of the patients with suspected or diagnosed new coronavirus pneumonia should be known and defined in detail. All healthcare professionals, particularly surgeons and nurses, should be provided with advantages in protection from the disease. All patients should be managed as Covid-19 patients until the results are confirmed. Risk of Covid-19 should be considered for general surgery emergencies and personal protective equipment should be used accordingly. Patients should be transferred to the operating rooms by service nurses and nurses should wear N95 masks, goggles/ face shields, waterproof aprons and overshoes. Patients should also wear a surgical mask and transferred to the operating room via the shortest way with least contact with others.

Hospital management should take precautions against the risk of infection, nurses should gain more awareness and pay attention to using protective equipment such as gloves and masks. Ventilation of the healthcare institutions is important to protect patients and healthcare personnel and to prevent the infections caused by the institution. For this purpose, various air conditioning systems are developed, each of which has its pros and cons. It is thought that improving environmental conditions of the operating rooms would increase the chance of preventing surgical infections, decrease complications, increase the quality of the operation, increase the quality of healthcare service by decreasing cost and reduce the stress of the operating room personnel.

Multidimensionality of the concept of health and the need for interdisciplinary cooperation and several approaches are some of the most important elements that form the basis of nursing education. Nurses who are educated on occupational risks and employee safety can have the ability to define and control the possible risk factors. Nurses undertake many duties besides patient care in operating rooms, which are not their essential duties. Excessive workload and transfer of the duties of other disciplines to nurses leads to the emergence of an unhappy occupational group which works hard yet does not have time to practice their own profession. This situation should be prevented and it should be ensured that nurses do the duties they have been trained for.

Concordance and productivity of the team depend on the position and role of each member of the team being defined and recognized. It also depends on each member having the capability and possibility to perform their own roles at their best. Therefore, nurses' roles should be defined and nurses should be capable of performing those, and roles of nurses should be known, recognized, accepted and respected by the other members of the team. In order to establish such an environment, besides following the law and legislation, employees and employers should accept their roles that prioritize health and safety, believe that safety would be maintained in the institution, adopt an appropriate attitude and display social responsibilities.

As described above safe working environment is important for all hospital workers, especially for those who work in operating rooms. Necessary precautions *Occupational Health and Safety in Operating Rooms DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97223*

should be taken and controlled regularly in order for surgical nurses to perform their duties successfully. Employees should be informed about work safety precautions and most importantly push for these precautions. In addition to patient and employee safety in operating rooms, environmental safety also has an important place. Environmental risk analysis should be performed by experts in the operating rooms at regular intervals and risk management should be implemented by the occupational health and safety committees in the hospital.
