**1. Introduction**

It is a legal requirement that employers must provide a safe and healthy working environment their employees. In terms of public health, it is important to control occupational and environmental factors in all workplaces [1]. Health sector is one of the dangerous lines of work in which occupational health and safety (OHS) are becoming increasingly important. Healthcare professionals are faced with many occupational risks while performing their duties. There are also many risk factors for those who work in operating rooms. These include inconvenient physical environment, heavy physical work, working in shifts and working in non-ergonomic positions [2–5]. Employee health is also threatened by stress, mobbing, violence, malnutrition etc. For example, being in close contact with the patient in the operating room increases the risk of infection. Nurses who are likely to come into contact with blood and bodily fluids of the patients during their daily activities at the hospital are in the high risk group for blood-borne diseases. Thus, researches indicate that nurses are mostly faced with biological and psychological risk factors [6].

Operating room employees may experience occupational accidents due to sharp object injuries, contamination with blood and bodily fluids, heavy lifting, falling, hitting, tripping, slipping, being injured etc. [7, 8]. Moreover, traffic accidents during commute and all kinds of accidents that happen at work such as musculoskeletal system wounds, violence, allergic reactions, burnt, poisoning, fire, explosion and electric shock can also be listed among these [9].

However, the duties of healthcare professionals are mostly considered as providing service to patients who need healthcare. Therefore, it is mostly neglected that healthcare professionals can have occupational problems. In this respect, institutions that provide healthcare service are generally organized to achieve patient care, treatment and satisfaction instead of prioritizing the health and safety needs of healthcare personnel. Work environment, occupational health and safety of the healthcare professionals, who provide service for patients, are mostly overlooked.

The risks of the operating rooms may cause a decrease in productivity, economic loss of the institution, increase in occupational accidents, and putting the people who receive care from healthcare professionals directly at risk. Therefore, hospitals need to be suitable for health and safety measures, environmental precautions should be taken, risk factors should be eliminated or controlled and personal protective equipment should be paid attention to by performing risk assessment and management.
