1 Introduction
Hospital workers are prone to accidental injuries during their day-to-day activities at work. These accidental injuries are of importance because many of them predispose the workers to blood-borne infections. The risk of these infections is increased by the frequency of injury or exposure to infected blood or body fluids.
Several factors have been found to predispose hospital workers to blood-related work accidents. Sim and Dudley1 found that the incidence rate of contamination of glasses used for operations was higher when the operation was long and complex. However, Lowenfels et al.2 did not find any correlation between puncture injury rates and the number of hours spent in the operating room.
Injury rate was also found to be related to the procedure being carried out. A high rate of injury was found during gynaecologic procedures. This was attributed to performing deep pelvic surgery where visibility is poor, and to guiding or palpating suture needles with fingers.3. and 4. Fatigue and the desire to speed up surgical operations have also been identified as factors responsible for injuries during surgery.5 Hussain et al.6 found that general surgeons are at greater risk than other specialist surgeons of having accidental injuries.
In a study by Tokar et al.,7 it was found that, in 24 instances, 24% of injuries involved instruments being held by a co-worker. This shows the importance of co-ordination of the surgical team in injury prevention.8 The use of fingers rather than instruments to hold tissue or suture needles during suturing has been found to be associated with injuries,7 and variations in surgical technique also influence the risk of injury.7 The skills of the surgical personnel have also been suggested to be related to the risk of injury. Lowenfels et al.2 did not find any association between sex, age and surgical status (general surgeon, specialist or resident) or type of hospital. However, injuries have been found to be more common on the non-dominant than the dominant hand [63% vs 34% (P=0.003)]7 and on the distal forefinger.2
Several variables have been found to be associated with an increased risk of an intra-operative exposure (P=0.025). These variables were: a loss of more than 300 ml of blood; a procedure lasting more than 3 h; emergency procedures; major surgical procedures required for trauma or fractures; laparotomies; intra-abdominal gynaecologic procedures; vascular procedures; otolaryngologic procedures; and cutaneous abscess drainages.9
A worryingly high incidence of percuteneous injury found in a study in Tanzania was explained by insufficient staff training, inadequate equipment and a poor waste-disposal system. This situation may be found in most poor resource settings.10 In her study in Nigeria, Ofili also found a high prevalence of blood-related work accidents among health workers, and cutaneous exposures were found to be more common than parenteral exposures.