Occupational injury history and universal precautions awareness: a survey in Kabul hospital staff

Salehi, Ahmad Shah and Garner, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0607-6941 (2010) 'Occupational injury history and universal precautions awareness: a survey in Kabul hospital staff'. BMC Infectious Diseases, Vol 10, Issue 19.

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Abstract

Background
Health staff in Afghanistan may be at high risk of needle stick injury and occupational infection with blood borne pathogens, but we have not found any published or unpublished data.

Methods
Our aim was to measure the percentage of healthcare staff reporting sharps injuries in the preceding 12 months, and to explore what they knew about universal precautions. In five randomly selected government hospitals in Kabul a total of 950 staff participated in the study. Data were analyzed with Epi Info 3.

Results
Seventy three percent of staff (72.6%, 491/676) reported sharps injury in the preceding 12 months, with remarkably similar levels between hospitals and staff cadres in the 676 (71.1%) people responding. Most at risk were gynaecologist/obstetricians (96.1%) followed by surgeons (91.1%), nurses (80.2%), dentists (75.4%), midwives (62.0%), technicians (50.0%), and internist/paediatricians (47.5%). Of the injuries reported, the commonest were from hollow-bore needles (46.3%, n = 361/780), usually during recapping. Almost a quarter (27.9%) of respondents had not been vaccinated against hepatitis B. Basic knowledge about universal precautions were found insufficient across all hospitals and cadres.

Conclusion
Occupational health policies for universal precautions need to be implemented in Afghani hospitals. Staff vaccination against hepatitis B is recommended.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/10/19. The ADDITIONAL CITATION INFORMATION: Highly Accessed
Subjects:	WA Public Health > WA 30 Socioeconomic factors in public health (General) W General Medicine. Health Professions > W 21.5 Allied health personnel. Allied health professions WA Public Health > Accident and Injury Prevention. Disasters > WA 250 General works
Faculty: Department:	Groups (2002 - 2012) > International Health Group
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-10-19
Depositing User:	Philomena Hinds
Date Deposited:	04 Aug 2010 15:34
Last Modified:	06 Sep 2019 10:14
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/1093

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