Post-Exposure Reporting of Needlestick and Sharp-Object Injuries among Nurses

Seo, Jeong Min; Jeong, Ihn Sook

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Nurses are often exposed to needlestick and sharp-object injuries (NSIs). This study aimed to investigate the post-exposure reporting rate of NSIs among nurses.
METHODS
The subjects were 84 nurses from 4 hospitals (3 hospitals with 300 or more beds and 1 hospital with less than 300 beds) who had experienced at least 1 NSI within a 6-month period. The instrument was a self-administered questionnaire, which was based on the EPINet report form and a questionnaire for NSIs among resident physicians, which was used by Choi et al. Data were collected between April 9 and June 15, 2009, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and the chi-square test, which was performed using SPSS with a significance level of 0.05.
RESULTS
Among the 84 nurses who had experienced at least 1 NSI within 6 months, only 14.3% had reported the NSIs, and 58.4% of these subjects reported the NSI immediately after sustaining the injury. The most common reason for not reporting was "the patients were found out to be uninfectious" (81.9%) followed by "too busy" (65.3%). The incidence of post-exposure reporting was negatively related to the number of NSIs (chi-square=13.871, p<0.001) and positively related to assessments of infectivity of the patients (chi-square=4.248, P=0.039) and other persons' recommendations to report NSIs (chi-square=4.092, P=0.043).
CONCLUSION
The post-exposure reporting rate was very low. The factors responsible for this low rate should be investigated in a more systematic manner, and more measures should be undertaken to increase the reporting rate among nurses.