The vulnerability of nursing workers to tuberculosis in a teaching hospital.

This study aimed to identify aspects that potentially increase the vulnerability of nursing workers to tuberculosis, through the verification of personal life, work and disease knowledge indexes. The sample is composed of 81 nursing workers involved with assistance in the night and day shifts at USP Teaching Hospital, who answered a questionnaire about life and work habits. The sample aggregated the indexes that increase vulnerability to tuberculosis: long professional experience in hospitals and work load longer than 12 hours. Data show that nursing auxiliaries and workers from the night shift in general have a higher number of vulnerability indexes.