Needlestick and Sharps Injuries at Asir Central Hospital, Abha, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

McCormick and Maki were the first to highlight the risk of healthcare workers (HCWs) suffering harm from sharps injuries.1 Since then, there has been an increase in awareness and concern about the acquisition of blood borne pathogens through needlestick injuries, especially with the advent of HIV.2 The importance and seriousness of these infections were recently emphasized by the US Department of Labor. 3 The risk of such infections in health care workers has become a challenge because of high costs, labor incapacity, mortality and social stigmatization. With the global increase in HIV and related infections, most health institutions have in place guidelines for prevention, reporting and management of needlestick and other sharp injuries, but the enforcement of such guidelines varies from place to place, as does the response by health care workers.One of the commonest problems mitigating against proper management of sharps injuries has been the issue of non-reporting by health care workers. In a recent study of sharps injuries among Taiwanese health care workers, it was found that as many as 82% of sharps injuries were unreported.

Injection safety at primary health care level in south-western Saudi Arabia

“…Our study showed that about 15% of PHC physicians and nurses had experienced needlestick injuries in the previous year, giving rates of 0.21 and 0.38 needlestick injuries per person per year respectively. These figures are almost double the figures of Buraidah [16] and Asir [17] central hospitals in Saudi Arabia, which are are secondary or tertiary hospitals. Differences in facilities, workload, manpower structure and training programmes may explain the difference.…”

Benchmarking of Percutaneous Injuries at the Ministry of Health Hospitals of Saudi Arabia in Comparison with the United States Hospitals Participating in Exposure Prevention Information Network (EPINet™)

“…This is similar to another study 11 that reported that the patient room where the place of the largest proportion of overall NSSIs followed by the operating room. Another study 7 also found that during a four-year period, wards consistently were the most common places of occurrence of NSSIs, while another report 24 indicated that areas of the hospital with the highest activities, such as operating room and intensive care units, had the highest number of sharp injuries. In studied US hospitals, the operating/recovery room was the most common place where PIs reported.…”

“…It may also be attributed to their under-reporting behavior, a finding that coincides with that of the US EPINet™ hospitals and other reports. 23,24 The higher rate of PIs among housekeepers in Saudi MOH hospitals compared to the US hospitals explained by the very rapid turnover of Most PIs happened in patients' wards in Saudi MOH hospitals (34.6%). This is similar to another study 11 that reported that the patient room where the place of the largest proportion of overall NSSIs followed by the operating room.…”

Needlestick and sharps injuries among secondary and tertiary healthcare workers, Saudi Arabia

“…In Saudi Arabia, while many studies have focussed on the rates of NSSIs in hospitals, all of them focussed on a single level of hospital care (Abu-Gad & Al-Turki, 2001;Balkhy et al, 2011;Ghamdi et al, 2003;Ismail et al, 2014;Kennedy et al, 1998;Memish et al, 2002;Paul, 2000;Shanks & Al-Kalai, 1995). A 2014 study by Ismail et al, which evaluated the injection safety procedures followed by HCWs in primary healthcare facilities, revealed a needle stick injury rate of 14% (Ismail et al, 2014).…”