Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate blood and bodily fluids exposure through needlestick injuries (NSI) and non-percutaneous incidents among healthcare workers (HCWs). This project utilized a dataset collected from J. W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, between January 1, 2014 and August 15, 2017. Data included de-identified codes of employees, occupations, types of exposure to bloodborne pathogens, routes of exposure, infectious disease exposures, and time incidents. During this time period, 655 incident reports were documented and finalized in regards to blood or body fluid exposure. HCWs had 506 (77.25%) NSIs and 149 (22.74%) non-percutaneous incidents. The majority of the HCWs (331,50.53%) were nurses who were occupationally exposed, with 239 (47.23%) incidents reporting NSIs and 92 (61.74%) incidents reporting non-percutaneous exposures.
Highlights
The primary role of healthcare workers (HCWs) is to care for sick and injured patients, which can expose HCWs to a variety of diseases, injuries, and conditions
HCWs can face exposures to hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus, (HIV), as well as other illnesses transmitted by blood and bodily fluids HCWs are most often exposed to disease through needlestick injuries (NSIs) [3]
The data identified 926 incidents received between January 1, 2014, and August 15, 2017, with 913 incidents documented as blood or bodily fluid exposures and 13 documented as other incidents
Summary
The primary role of healthcare workers (HCWs) is to care for sick and injured patients, which can expose HCWs to a variety of diseases, injuries, and conditions. In a 12 year CDC study of selected hospitals in the U.S, 30,945 incident of exposures were reported, with 82% of those as percutaneous exposures [10]. These exposures most often occurred in in-patient units (36%) and operating rooms (29%).Nurses (42%) were most often exposed, followed by physicians (30%). One study reported 82.1% of HCWs experienced percutaneous injuries, and 48.7% experienced other types of exposure to blood and bodily fluids throughout their work in the field [6].
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