Occupational exposure to needle stick injury and blood/body fluid splash and determinants among health care professional of public health centers of Arada sub city, Adiss Ababa Ethiopia

Abstract

Globally, hundreds thousands to millions of health care professionals are exposed to serious and fatal disease causing microorganisms due to their exposure to needle stick, and blood/body fluid splashes each year. Exposures to needle stick blood/body fluid splashes are one of the challenging issues in Ethiopia with a one-year and lifetime prevalence of 55.1% and 63.6% respectively among health care workers of Ethiopia. Objective:To assess the magnitude of occupational exposure to needle stick injury and blood/body fluid splash and its determinants among health care professionals of public health centers of Arada sub city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2023. Methods: Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted from Nov. 1 to Nov.30, 2022 among 438 health care professionals selected by simple random sampling in public health centers of Arada sub city. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data, entered via EpInfo version 7 and exported to SPSS version 22 for analysis. The result of the study was presented by frequencies, tables, graphs and significant predictors was reported with odds ratio, 95% confidence interval and corresponding p.value (<0.05). Result: From a total of 435 participants, 222(51.0) and 131 (30.1%)wereexposed to blood/body fluids and needle stick injuries in their life time respectively. Lack of training on infection prevention (AOR, 2.40 95% CI(1.18-4.89) inavailability of PPEs throughout the year (AOR 2.64 95%CI(1.19-5.87)) and having job related stress (AOR3.58 95%CI(1.63-7.85)) were significant preddictors that increase of exposure to blood/body fluids. Conclusion and recommendation: The life time prevalence of exposure to blood/body fluids and neddle stick injuriess in this study was relatively high. providing training on infection prevention, availing personal protective equipment throughout the year and preventing/treating job related stress might decrease exposure to blood/body fluids. Key words: occupational exposure, blood and body fluid splash, needle stick injury...................Thesis available at Addis Continental Institute of Public Health Library