Awareness About Needle Stick Injures and Sharps Disposal: A Study Conducted at Army College of Dental Sciences

Abstract

Background The present study aims to assess the knowledge and attitude about needle stick injuries and sharps disposal. Methods A self designed questionnaire of 15 questions was handed out to 200 participants including undergraduate students (group 1), postgraduate students (group 2), faculty members (group 3) and auxiliary staff members (group 4). The data was collected and analyzed using Chi square test. Results Sixty-one percent of total participants reported of experiencing needle stick injury and 25.5 % knew that there could be several causes for this. Only 22 % of total population studied got the source tested. Immunization status of group 4 was very low and they also lacked the knowledge of sharps disposal and hepatitis C being spread by needle stick injuries. 57 % participants confirmed that there was no reporting facility and 66 % were not familiar with the guidelines of reporting.Conclusions There is a definite scope of improvement in terms of reporting and prevention of needle stick injuries. There is a need to improve knowledge and awareness of dental health care workers about the post exposure protocol.

Needle Stick Injury Reporting Behavior and Risk Perception Among Sanitation Staff in Tertiary Care Hospitals in Delhi.

“…Most of the events (66%) occurred while picking up the sharp from the floor which was in accordance with the study done by Bindra et al [4] where manipulation of sharps was found to be leading cause of NSIs. In other studies carried out among health care workers it was observed that most of the incidents occurred while recapping the needle [14,22,10].…”

“…According to a study done in medical students, it was found that 99.3% of the students had knowledge about Blood Borne disease [10]. Only 34% considered both HIV and Hepatitis being transferred by NSIs which was in accordance with previous studies [4,12]. But in a study done by MaqboolAlam in Saudi Arabia among nurses and paramedical staff, only 20% were not aware of both HIV and Hepatitis being transferred by NSIs [13] whereas study conducted by Muralidhar et al [14] among health care professionals found that almost all were aware of HIV and Hepatitis B and C being transferred by NSIs.…”

“…The work environment of hospitals lead to an increased risk of acquisition of Blood borne pathogens such as HIV, hepatitis B and C. WHO estimates the global burden of disease from occupational exposure to be 40% of the hepatitis B and C infections and 2.5% of the HIV infections among HCWs as attributable to exposures at work [1]. The immunization status for sanitation staff was found to be 22.5 %, 16.3 % and 92.3% in previous studies [4,15,16] as compared to our study where 34.7% of the sample were vaccinated for Hepatitis B. Lack of awareness and lack of stringent implementation of vaccination protocol by the outsourcing companies may be some of the reasons for low immunization status.…”

“…Needle stick injuries present the single greatest risk to health care personnel and increasing awareness along with regular training in Universal Safety Precautions (USP) is required for prevention of nosocomial infection [3]. In spite of plethora of published literature and training programs to prevent these injuries, significant success has not been achieved in preventing NSI [4].…”

The Prevalence and Underreporting of Needlestick Injuries among Dental Healthcare Workers in Pakistan: A Systematic Review

“…Consequently, NSIs represent a serious health and safety concern for dental-HCWs. Similarly, other studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries have concluded that over half of dental-HCWs have been exposed to more than one NSI [ 22 , 23 , 54 ]. Furthermore, Jan et al [ 26 ] reported that participants had experienced multiple NSIs in the preceding 12 months, indicating that NSIs remain an ongoing, contemporary risk to dental-HCWs.…”