Assessment of Percutaneous Exposure Incidents and Associated Factors among Health Care Personnel in Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Addis Ababa

Abstract

Background: Percutaneous exposure incidents (PEIs) and blood splashes on the skin of health care personnel’s are a major concern worldwide. It exposes the healthcare personnel to the risk of infectious diseases. Objective: this study was designed to assess percutaneous exposure incidents (PEIs) and associated factors among health care personnel in Gandhi Memorial hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Methods: Institution-based quantitative cross sectional study design was utilized involving 244 study subjects using systematic random sampling technique. The data was collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire & interview based data collection technique. The data was cleaned and entered into a computer software using Epi Info 6.04 and then exported to statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression were also computed to assess statistical association between the outcome variable and selected independent variables using odd ratio, significance of association was assured or tested using 95% confidence interval and P-value (<0.05). Results: The prevalence of percutaneous injuries was high among females HCP (65.6%), HCP age group of 18-24 years (45.2%) were the highest exposed to needle stick. Nurses had the highest prevalence of percutaneous injuries (26.9%) from other health professionals and Auxiliary staff (43.0%) had the highest prevalence of sharp injuries from all healthcare workers. The prevalence of mucocutaneous exposure to patient’s blood and body fluid was highest among Auxiliary staff (janitors, laundry workers, housekeeping, and maintenance) (55.9 %) than other heath care workers. Factors associated with occurrence of needle-stick injuries were job category and working hour .In addition respondents with educational level of BSc degree holders were found to be 33 times at risk for sustaining NSI than those with educational level of primary, secondary school and diploma (AOR=33.01, 95%CI=3.93-77.07, P-value=0.001 Conclusion and Recommendation: The findings of this study indicated that occupational exposures were common among healthcare workers, including accidental needle-stick, cuts with contaminated instruments and blood splashes.

Keywords: Occupational exposure, percutaneous exposure incidents, needle-stick injuries, health care personnel.