Occupational Health Nursing aims at securing the health, safety and well-being of the workforce. This is achieved through assessing, monitoring and promoting the health status of the workers, and developing strategies to improve the working conditions and the total environment.
The Story Behind the OHN Definition
The official FOHNEU definition of Occupational Health Nursing is the result of a multi-year, collaborative process that involved board members and national representatives from across the Federation.
The project began in 2006 at the Tarragona meeting, where the Board agreed that FOHNEU should develop a single, shared definition of Occupational Health Nursing. The work was led by Prof. Panayota Sourtzi, the Greek national representative and coordinator of the FOHNEU Education and Research Working Group.
At the Tarragona meeting, an inspiring example was shared: Portugal had succeeded in changing the dictionary definition of the word "nurse," moving it away from the image of a carer for the sick and infirm and instead emphasising prevention. Some countries were even using the word "advisor" instead of "nurse," feeling it better reflected the role.
At this stage, the core question was essentially how to raise the profile of the profession. Drawing on the lesson learned in Tarragona, the Board agreed on a concrete task: all national representatives were asked to look at the definitions in their own national dictionaries and consider how these might be modernised.
At the 31st FOHNEU Board Meeting (Budapest, Hungary, 2010), the definition was placed on the agenda as its own item. By this point, two further proposals had been submitted for review.
The definition reached its conclusion at the 32nd FOHNEU Board Meeting (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2010), where President Julie Staun thanked Professor Sourtzi for her work, noting that the process had taken four years — from the first idea in Tarragona in 2006 to the agreed final version.
This four-year process, spanning from the first spark in Tarragona in 2006 to its formal adoption in Ljubljana in October 2010, reflects how seriously FOHNEU approached the task of defining its own profession. Rather than a single committee decision, it was a long, democratic process that engaged national representatives from across the Federation — from reviewing national dictionary definitions to the final rounds of wordsmithing.
