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Hindi Research Article
Occupational Exposure to Needle Stick Injuries among Health Care Personnel in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Cross Sectional Study
Ramesh Holla*, Bhaskaran Unnikrishnan, Pradhum Ram, Rekha Thapar, Prasanna Mithra, Nithin Kumar, Vaman Kulkarni and Bhagawan Bhagyamma Darshan
Department of Community Medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Mangalore-575001, Karnataka, India
- *Corresponding Author:
- Dr. Ramesh Holla
Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine
Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University
Mangalore-575001, Karnataka, India
Tel: +91-9741736093
Fax: +91-8242422271
E-mail: 13rameshholla@gmail.com
Received date: January 16, 2013; Accepted date: March 17, 2014; Published date: March 19, 2014
Citation: Holla R, Unnikrishnan B, Ram P, Thapar R, Mithra P, et al. (2014) Occupational Exposure to Needle Stick Injuries among Health Care Personnel in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Cross Sectional Study. J Community Med Health Educ S2:004. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.S2-004
Copyright: © 2014 Holla R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: Health care personnel are at increased risk of contracting blood borne pathogens due to their occupational exposure to blood and body fluids. According to the World Health Organization, out of 35 million health workers worldwide, about 3 million receive percutaneous exposures to blood borne pathogens each year. Objectives: 1) To know the extent of occupational exposure to needle stick injuries among health care personnel of tertiary care hospitals. 2) Assessing the relationship between occurrence of needle stick injuries with the work experience and awareness regarding universal precautions among health care personnel. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among health care personnel of three tertiary care teaching hospitals attached to a medical college in coastal south India. The data was collected from the health care personnel by using a self-administered, pre tested, semi structured questionnaire. Analysis was done by using SPSS Version 11.5. Results: Majority of the health care personnel (n=127, 67.2%) were aged between 25 and 45 years. More than half of the health care personnel (n=109, 58.1%) were doctors followed by staff nurses (n=62, 33.4) and hospital supportive staffs (n=18, 9.5%). Needle stick injuries was observed among 71.9% (n=136) of health care personnel. Majority of the needle stick injuries were observed among the health care personnel who had a work experience of five and more than five years and it was found to be statistically significant. Needle stick injuries were more among health care personnel who were unaware of universal precautions. Conclusions: The proportion of needle stick injuries was more among health care personnel and this can be reduced by training the workers regarding universal precautions and making sure that they are adhering to these norms.
