PREVALENCE OF SHARP INJURY AMONG STAFF NURSES IN A TERTIARY HOSPITAL: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Background:Healthcare settings pose a major occupational hazard to their employees. Needlestick and sharps injuries (NSSIs) are one of the major risk factors for blood-borne infection among healthcare workers.

Materials and Method: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary healthcare hospital in Lucknow district with the objectives of assessing the prevalence of sharp injury among staff nurses and the safety precautions taken after the occurrence of sharp injury. The study participants included the staff nurses at various departments of the hospital who were randomly selected for the study. Thus a total of 85 staff nurses were selected and interviewed after taking verbal consent.

Results and Discussion: The majority (54.1%) of the staff nurses were in the age group of 26-35 years. Out of the total, 32.9% had an incident of sharp injury. Needle (67.9%) accounted for the maximum injury. Of the total that got injured, injury occurred during the use of sharp item (82.1%) and of the total that got injured, only 28.6% took post-exposure prophylaxis as injection TT.

Conclusion: In the present study almost half of the participants had an occurrence of sharp injury over the past one year. And poor post exposure prophylaxis practices were observed.