Occupational sharps and needlestick injuries among physician residents at an academic health center

Abstract

Objective: Occupational sharps and needlestick injuries (SNSI) are a significant and persistent challenge in the U.S. healthcare work environment. With the purpose of better delineating contributing factors for a ubiquitous occupational injury among healthcare workers, we undertook a two-component study of SNSIs among physician residents and nurses at an academic health center.
Methods: Retrospective injury data among nurses (N = 58) and medical residents (N = 63) were analyzed. A 35-item crosssectional survey was used to evaluate the prevalence, non-reporting, and contributing factors among physician residents who sustained a SNSI (N = 76).
Results: Physician residents had a rate of injury that was 11.0 SNSIs/100 medical residents/year compared to nurses at 3.2 SNSIs/100 nurses/year; a rate three-fold higher. Physician residents in neurosurgery, otolaryngology, obstetrics and gynecology, and general surgery reported the highest rates of injury.
Conclusions: Our results underscore the need for a more comprehensive study to better identify injury drivers specific to the operating room environment.

Keywords

Needlestick injuries / Nursing / Physicians / Occupational injuries / Hospitals / Surveys and questionnaires

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge MB Rao, PhD; Kelley Crandell, MS; Andrew Freeman, MD; Lauri Heck, RN; and Ericka Purtee, MSN, RN for critical review of this work.

AUTHORS CONTRIBUTIONS

Alexei Krainev: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft Preparation, Writing - Review & Editing. Wali Jahangiri: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft Preparation, Writing - Review & Editing. Sofia Villaveces: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft Preparation, Writing - Review & Editing. Hannah Phipps: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft Preparation, Writing - Review & Editing. Victoria Wulsin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing - Review & Editing. Kermit G. Davis: Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing - Review & Editing. Gordon Lee Gillespie: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing - Review & Editing.

FUNDING

The study was supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health through the Pilot Research Project Training Program of the University of Cincinnati Education and Research Center Grant #T42OH008432.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE

The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

INFORMED CONSENT

Physician resident respondents provided informed consent for participating in the cross-sectional survey phase. A waiver of signed consent was approved by the IRB for this phase. Because data were anonymous for the retrospective phase, no interaction took place with nurses and physician residents from this phase.

ETHICS APPROVAL

The Publication Ethics Committee of the Association for Health Sciences and Education. The journal’s policies adhere to the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

PROVENANCE AND PEER REVIEW

Not commissioned; externally double-blind peer reviewed.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Due to facility restrictions, the data are not available.

DATA SHARING STATEMENT

The study respondents did not give consent for their data to be shared publicly, therefore, the data are not available for sharing.

OPEN ACCESS

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

COPYRIGHTS

Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.

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