Assessment of psychosocial risks in a production unit

Introduction
Psychosocial risks (PSR) are defined as a risk to the physical and mental health of workers. Their causes are to be found in the conditions of employment, factors related to the organisation of work and work relations. The French Labor Code requires that they be assessed in the company.
Aim. The objective of this work is to evaluate the RPS in a drug compounding unit.

Material and Methods
The evaluation was carried out over a period of 18 days in December 2020. It took place in a team producing sterile and non-sterile preparations (excluding chemotherapy), with 17 professionals (technicians, residents, managers, pharmacists) by means of a self-administered questionnaire questioning 7 risk families.

Results
The return rate of the questionnaires was 59%. The average rate of exposure (RE) to PSR was measured at 28% within the sector. Workload and intensity as well as emotional demands related to work emerged as the first two families of PSRs with respectively RE of 39% and 32%, followed by autonomy (RE 30%) and the quality of social relations (RE 30%).
The interruption of tasks (RE 60%) or the management of unforeseen events (RE 60%) were identified as the main risk factors in relation to the perception of workload and intensity, in a sector requiring a high level of vigilance (RE 58%) and for which the rate of production was perceived as sustained (RE 48%).
Regarding the perception of emotional demands, it was mainly linked to the strong feeling of interdependence in the work done (RE 85%) that can disorganise the sector when errors are made.
Linked to autonomy, the inability to interrupt one’s work to take a break (RE 60%) and the lack of consultation regarding service projects (RE 50%) were the two main risk factors. Regarding the quality of social relations, the staff remained exposed to conflictual situations (RE 30%) essentially linked to the organisation of work, the absence of communication or a different perception of priorities with a rate of exposure to physical or verbal violence of less than 5%.
The level of mutual aid, identified meeting times and access to information, particularly procedures, were identified as protective factors.

Discussion-Conclusion
This survey made it possible to identify PSR factors to be worked on (interruption of tasks, organisation of breaks, project management) and protective factors to be promoted (autonomy of work organisation, mutual aid), within a work environment secured by easy access to the information necessary to perform the work.