Abstract
Nursing research is defined as a scientific process that validates and improves existing foundations and generates new knowledge that influences professional practice both directly and indirectly (Grove, 2017). In the pre-COVID-19 era, the research priorities in occupational health nursing were focused on the promotion of healthy habits among the working population, the influence of exposure to psychosocial risks in organizations, new ways of working as a result of the current labor context, and the management of chronic diseases. In addition, the identification of emerging work-related diseases, the role of aging workforce, the adaptation of migrant workers, and vulnerable working populations were also an area of interest (Gagliardi et al., 2017; Lalloo et al., 2018). These areas are influenced by globalization, changes in the organization of work, migratory movements of workers, progressive digitization of production processes, effects of climate change on health, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once COVID-19 emerged, the Federation of Occupational Health Nurses within the European Union (FOHNEU, 2021) identified these complementary research priorities: the analysis of the consequences of the pandemic on the role of occupational health nursing, the development of skills, the effectiveness of interaction with members of the multidisciplinary team for the prevention of occupational risks, and the access of workers to the portfolio of nursing services. The report also mentioned stress and mental health problems caused by the pandemic, telework, and return to work after long COVID syndrome as secondary but important research priorities. In addition, the International Council of Nurses (ICN, 2021), the World Health Organization (WHO, 2021), The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (National Academy of Sciences, 2021) and the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2019a,b) proposed parallel actions to deepen nursing research competence, analyze response strategies of occupational health professionals to the needs of workers, and anticipate the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in this nursing discipline. At the same time, they also proposed to establish the cost-benefit of occupational health nursing specialty services to employers, to seek innovative formulas that allow integrating technology in holistic care provided with a gender perspective and to identify the needs of nursing training associated with pandemics.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided lessons that occupational health nurses must analyze carefully to be better prepared in the future (García et al., 2021). This public health crisis is also an occupational health problem necessitating that future research include the impact of the pandemic on social inequalities, on occupations with a higher risk of contagion and their working conditions, and the consequences in health workers, specifically aspects related to mental health (Burdorf et al., 2020). These areas of research guide necessary changes that must be made to the work environment (ILO, 2021; WHO, ILO, 2022). Occupational health nurses must participate in the search for novel strategies with a holistic approach that maintain and promote the safety and health of workers. The purpose of the occuptional health nursing discipline, through its research agenda, is to provide high-quality care that is worker-centered, accessible, equitable, coordinated, with a gender perspective and cost-efficient.
