Injuries refer to any damage to the body. Injuries can be caused by accidents or acts of violence, and may occur at home, work, or play. They can be due to impact from sharp objects (from objects that penetrate the body) or blunt objects.
The most common injuries health care workers are exposed to include needle stick punctures or cuts with medical instruments. Others causes of injuries may also include:
- Overuse of injections and unnecessary sharps
- Lack of supplies: disposable syringes, safer needle devices and sharps disposal containers
- Lack of access and failure to use sharps containers immediately after injection
- Lack of personal protective equipment, safety devices, and sharps disposal containers,
- Inadequate or short staffing
- Recapping of needles after use
- Lack of engineering controls such as safer needle devices
- Passing instruments from hand to hand in the operating suite
- Lack of hazard awareness and lack of training
Factors that can influence the risk of injuries among healthcare workers are equipment, design of instruments, working conditions and working practices. Injuries often occur in a fast-paced, stressful and understaffed situation. Working under such a demanding situation may result in fatigue, poor concentration, and carelessness, thus increasing the risk of injuries. Studies show that long working hours and sleep deprivation among healthcare workers results in fatigue, which is associated with a 3-fold increase in the risk of injury.
Injuries can also be associated with certain working practices that increase the risk of exposure to infectious body fluids, such as unsafe collection and disposal of sharps waste and re-capping of needles.
Prevention of injuries due to sharps
Prevention measures to eliminate or reduce sharps injuries can be done in different ways. The following are the preventive and protective measures, which must be considered when aiming to eliminate the risk of sharps injuries:
- Eliminating the unnecessary use of sharps
- Providing medical devices
- Incorporating safety-engineered protection mechanisms
- Implementing safe systems of work
- Implementing safe procedures for using and disposing medical sharps
- Banning recapping
- Using personal protective equipment
- Vaccination
- Information and training
Preventing injuries is the most effective way to protect workers. A comprehensive sharps injury prevention program would include:
- Needles should not be recapped. Used items should be placed immediately in a designated puncture-resistant container that is easily accessible at the point-of-care.
- Healthcare workers should cover open skin areas or lesions on hands and arms with a dry dressing at all times.
- Eyes, nose, and mouth should be protected if splashes with blood or body fluids are anticipated.
- First-aid should be immediate if there has been exposure to blood or body fluids.
- Elimination – find ways to eliminate or reduce needle use during procedures, medication delivery, and specimen collection
- Engineering controls – remove or isolate the hazard by using sharps disposal containers or other devices that have an integrated injury prevention feature. Safety devices must be chosen with care as no one device or strategy will work in every situation.
- Work-practice controls – Steps that can be taken to reduce injuries include using instruments to grasps needles or load/unload scalpels, avoiding hand-to-hand passage of sharps, separating sharps from other waste, not carry garbage or linen bags close to the body, etc.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – PPE should be used as the last control approach, where appropriate.
