Non-Safety and Safety Device Sharp Injuries—Risk of Incidents, SEDs Availability, Attitudes and Perceptions of Nurses According to Cross-Sectional Survey in Poland

Anna Garus-Pakowska (), Mariusz Górajski and Piotr Sakowski
Additional contact information
Anna Garus-Pakowska: Department of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Medical University of Łódź, 90-752 Łódź, Poland
Piotr Sakowski: IKM Pro Sakowska, Michałowska, Łyszkiewicz sp.j., 90-132 Łódź, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-18

Abstract: Sharp injuries are a serious issue among healthcare workers (HCWs). The aim of the study was to examine the frequency of sharps injuries among nurses (who have the most frequent contact with infectious material) when using devices with and without safety features, then to analyse the factors associated with such injuries and to compare the risk of injuries with safety engineered devices (SEDs) and non-safety engineered devices (non-SEDs). An online cross-sectional survey was completed between October 2021 and March 2022 by 280 nurses. The incidence of exposure to sharp injury during their professional life was 51.4%. The percentage of nurses experiencing a sharp injury in the year preceding the study was 29% and 9.6% for superficially and deep injury, respectively. Ampoules and conventional hollow-bore needles caused the most injuries (25.92% and 22.64% of nurses in the last year). Factors including sex (males), age and seniority (elderly), education (higher), work exhaustion and being left-handed were associated with the occurrence of conventional hollow-bore needle injuries. In the case of SEDs: age, seniority and right/left-handed were the most frequent risk factors associated with the occurrence of sharp injuries. SEDs injuries were much less frequent than non-SEDs. There was a significant difference between the risk of injuries with safety and non-safety needles, central cannulas and ampoules. Fisher’s exact test ( p -value = 0.000) and positive Spearman’s rho statistics (0.2319, p -value = 0.0001) confirmed that in accredited hospitals, the availability of safety needles was higher. Almost half of the nurses ( n = 115, 41.07%) stated that staff had little influence on the type of medical sharp instruments supplied. To reduce the risk of nurse injuries, access to medical devices with safe protection mechanisms should be ensured, the use of sharp instruments should be limited where possible, managers should consult nurses regarding the choice of safe devices, and training programs on the proper use of SEDs should be available.

Keywords: sharp injuries; needlestick injuries; nurses; safety-engineered devices; SEDs; non-safety devices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11315/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11315/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:18:p:11315-:d:910326

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().