Assessment of Injection Safety Practice among nurses at Primary Health Care Centers in Mosul

Abstract

Background: safe injection practice is the practice that does not harm both health workers and recipient and not produce harmful waste products. Aim: To determine the injection safety practice among nurses at primary health care centers in Mosul city. Materials and method: a descriptive study was carried out to include a random sample of 45 nurses selected from 12 primary health care centers of both sides of the city left and right, tool of study depend on observational check list and interview questionnaire. Results: The study diagnosed both safe and unsafe injection practices which were performed by nurses at their setting of work. Safe practice significantly performed as single use of syringes, using a lot of sizes of syringes, dispose syringes to safety box, close safety box tightly, send safety boxes to buried and incinerated safety boxes, avoid changing safety boxes, specify a team to follow up safety injection measures, continuing education and training on safety injection. Unsafe practice also diagnosed as: don`t washing hands after injection, don`t using gloves when they have skin lesion, filling safety boxes to the top, dispose vials and ampoules to safety box. Poor vaccination coverage with hepatitis (B) vaccine among nurses. The study also found the only significant measures after exposure to needle stick injury were washing hands and notify about the exposure. Conclusion: The distribution of the nurses in the sample according to age, shows that the majority of them in 40-49 years of age. Presence of male nurses more evident than female, most of them have long work period of twenty-one years and more, the majority of the participant were graduated from nursing school. The study diagnosed both safe and unsafe practices. Recommendation The study recommends for: improving awareness of both patients and nurses to decrease over use of injection and on achievement of safety, improve vaccination coverage with hepatitis B vaccine and make it obligatory for all health care workers.