Impact of a single safety-engineered device on the occurrence of percutaneous injuries in a general hospital in Brazil

Abstract

Health care workers are exposed to bloodborne pathogens through occupational injuries, and the replacement of sharps by safety-engineered devices has been recommended as a key preventive measure. This recommendation has been difficult to implement in Brazil. We conducted a retrospective study of selected data from a database of blood and body fluid exposures reported from January 2007 through December 2011 in a public general hospital in Rio de Janeiro where, from the end of 2009, a safety lancet for blood glucose testing (BGT) was introduced. A log-binomial model was used to evaluate the effect of the introduction of the safety lancet on the proportion of percutaneous injuries (PIs) during BGT in the nursing staff. Nursing staff had a significant reduction in rate of PIs per 100 full-time equivalents from 2007 to 2011 (P < .001), and medical residents had the highest rate throughout the same period. A reduction of PIs by small-gauge needles was observed since 2009, and injuries during BGT fell abruptly in 2010 and 2011 paralleling the number of purchased safety lancets (P < .001). The adoption of a single safety device, which required no training, significantly reduced PIs among the nursing team.