Effect of Occupational Health and Safety Factors on Performance of Nurses in Public Health Facilities in Mbarara City, Uganda

This study sought to examine the physical health and safety factors affecting performance of nurses in public health facilities in Mbarara City, Uganda and to establish the effect of competence programs towards the performance of nurses in public health facilities in Mbarara City, Uganda. By adopting a cross sectional design and a quantitative approach, this study was guided by the Theories of Work Adjustment and Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory. A sample of 188 respondents including 152 nurses and 36 doctors was selected as respondents. With the help of self-administered questionnaires, data was obtained, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS software whose results were imported to Microsoft Word and presented in tables as descriptive and inferential statistics. It was revealed from the study findings that physical health and safety factors such as hospital infrastructure, lighting and ventilation were discovered to be significant influencing factors towards nurses’ performance just as competence programs such as motivation and teamwork do. It was concluded from the study that nurses’ performance can be improved by improving hospital infrastructure and enhancing competence programs such as motivation and teamwork. Occupational health and safety (OHS) factors influence nurses’ performance. Just as competence programs such as motivation and teamwork do. Keywords: Physical Health and Safety Factors, Competence Management programmes,Work environment, Performance of nurses.