**3. Physical risk factors**

The main physical risk factors which affect health professionals are ionizing and nonionizing radiation, noise, lighting, electrical assembly, slippery floors, hot/cold, ventilation, vibration and indoor pollution. Ionizing radiation is one of the most important physical hazards in hospitals, and it influences various different health professionals in different units and with different professions (mainly radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and radiology staff). It has car‐ cinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic impacts, and it is fatal in high concentrations. It leads to burns, cataracts, infertility, genetic and congenital anomalies in moderate concentrations, and it causes cancer (particularly leukemia) during long‐term exposure [8, 12, 13]. Nonionizing radiation is another physical risk factor for health professionals. It has been stated that the increment in the use of devices with electromagnetic fields and exposure to these electromag‐ netic fields deteriorate the body balance and lead to diseases. It has been reported that the exposure to nonionizing radiation particularly during the work time about 8–10 h leads to feeling of dryness in the throat, eye problems, headaches, allergies, facial flushing, insomnia, sensitivity to sounds, hearing difficulties and fatigue [8, 14, 15].

Loudness is another important factor, which disturbing people, complicates the commu‐ nication, restricts the relaxation, adversely affects and harms the nervous system, reduces the work efficiency and creates hearing problems. Studies have shown that loudness has increased at a level of discomfort in patients and health professionals in hospitals in the last 50 years [12, 16, 17].

The ventilation system of the hospitals has importance in the health protection of both patients and health professionals in terms of nosocomial infections. Therefore, the ventilation systems should be established to prevent the nosocomial infections by paying attention to biological and physical features of related microorganisms [2].

Another physical factor that can affect the health professionals is the lighting of the work‐ place. A sufficient and satisfactory level of lighting should be arranged in order to provide a comfortable workplace to the health professionals [18].
