Clinical education ‘Sometimes your safety goes a bit by the wayside’ … exploring occupational health and safety (OHS) with student nurses Rose Boucaut * , Lynette Cusack School of Nursing, University of Adelaide, North Terrace, South Australia 5000, Australia article info Article history: Received 15 April 2015 Received in revised form 19 April 2016 Accepted 27 July 2016 Keywords: Nursing students Occupational health and safety Risk management Education abstract Because nursing is a high risk profession in terms of occupational health and safety (OHS), the topic of OHS is an important component of student nurse education and practice. Seeking ways to enhance curricular content and foster student health, safety and wellbeing is an ongoing pursuit. This pilot study explored nursing student perspectives about OHS in the clinical setting to develop an understanding of student views that could enlighten teaching about this topic within the undergraduate nursing course. Focus groups were held with pre-registration student nurses in two discrete cohort levels (first and third year). Themes were identified from the focus group discussion about trust, knowledge and responsibility. The students demonstrated a sound grasp of clinical hazards and associated administrative controls. Strengthening student awareness of higher order controls and their evaluation would augment their knowledge of legislative requirements. Students may benefit from learning about a risk management approach to OHS which would provide them with a structured basis for problem solving. This may assist them with clinical reasoning about health and safety issues and empower them in aspects of self-care. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Training student nurses to work safely is vital because health care, particularly nursing, is a high risk industry worldwide (Driscoll, 2008; European Agency for Health and Safety at Work; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). Principles established about working safely and skills gained in foundation years set students up for their careers as Registered Nurses. Occu- pational Health and Safety (OHS) is an important component of both their clinical skill set and their theoretical knowledge. The purpose of this article is to present the findings from a pilot study of Australian nursing students' impressions and experiences of OHS while undertaking their clinical program. The findings are first presented and then discussed in relation to a risk management framework used to promote safe systems of work. The findings will be used to inform nursing academics, who prepare nursing stu- dents for clinical placement, of any specific OHS issues requiring their attention. Although an Australian pilot study, the findings have relevance to nursing educators globally as matters related to OHS issues for nursing students are not confined within the state borders of Australia. 2. Background Registered nurses face numerous occupational health hazards during their work (Driscoll, 2008; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; Stokowski, 2014), and the litera- ture shows that student nurses face similar occupational issues as those faced by qualified nurses; including issues that are psycho- social and physical in nature. Nursing students are susceptible to experiencing stress related to clinical placements, practical simulation exercises (Milosevic et al., 2012) and academic coursework (Pulido-Martos et al., 2012; Timmins and Kaliszer, 2002). In particular, longitudinal studies have investigated both stress experienced by nursing students in the United Kingdom (Edwards et al., 2010) and burnout experi- enced by Swedish nursing students (Rudman and Gustavsson, 2012). These studies each showed progressive increases from initial levels of stress and burnout (respectively) over the years of study from both clinical and academic pressures. In addition, some nursing students face financial pressures to undertake paid extra-curricular work during their training. It is therefore not surprising that they experience fatigue (Rella et al., * Corresponding author. School of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, University of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000, Australia. E-mail addresses: rose.boucaut@unisa.edu.au (R. Boucaut), Lynette.Cusack@ adelaide.edu.au (L. Cusack). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Nurse Education in Practice journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/nepr http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.07.005 1471-5953/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Nurse Education in Practice 20 (2016) 93e98