Needle Stick and Sharp Injuries among Nurses

A needle-stick injury (NSI) is defined as “a penetrating wound with an instrument that is potentially contaminated with the body fluid of another person”. NSIsrepresent a major occupational hazard in the health care industry, with professional nurses incurring a large proportion of the total burden particularly with items that have been previously used on patients.Needle-stick and other percutaneous injuries pose the greatest risk of occupational transmission of serious blood borne infections such as hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to health care workers (HCW) and patients.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 16000 HCV, 66000 HBV and 1000 cases of HIV may have occurred worldwide in the year 2000 among health care workers through their exposure, to NSIs. In Turkey, about four million people are estimated to be carriers of chronic HBV between 0% and 2% of the blood donor population were found to be HCV antibody positive. The numbers of patients with HIV reported is relatively low, rates have been increasing steadily in recent years, whereas this number reached a total of 1325 in 2001. WHO reports that the number of sharp and needle stick injuries per person among health care staff are 4 per year in Africa, Western Mediterranean and Asia.(Read more)