Evaluation of sharp injuries in healthcare professionals

Abstract

Aims: We carried out this descriptive study to retrospectively explore the occupational accidents in our hospital between January 01, 2016 - December 31, 2019. Methods: We present the descriptive statistics as means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages. Results: While 49.3% of the participants were aged 18-29 years, 75.2% were females. About half of the participants (52.2%) held a secondaryschool diploma. While 31.3% worked as trainee nurses, 24.4% were employed as nurses. Similarly, approximately half of the participants (48.9%) were deployed in clinics, and 16.0% engaged in care in intensive care units. Given the way the participants experienced the occupational accident, 53.3% were injured with a needle-stick (syringe/branule) and 21.9% with a lancet. Conclusion: It is well-known that sharp object injuries constitute a significant portion of occupational accidents occurring to healthcare professionals. Accordingly, the measures to be adopted to prevent such undesirable situations may be led by uncovering the frequency of and underlying factors for sharp object injuries, causing worries among healthcare professionals and loss of workforce and even death.