Background Healthcare workers are at high risk of occupational exposure to needle stick injury worldwide Occupational exposure to needle stick injury represents the most common sources of infection such as hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and human immunodeficiency virus Thus, this review aimed to determine the career time and previous one-year global pooled prevalence of occupational exposure to needle stick injury among healthcare workers Methods The review considered articles written in English language and published from 2012 to 2020 The articles were searched using nine electronic databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane library, Web of Science, SCOPUS, MedNar, and ScienceDirect) using a combination of Boolean logic operators (AND, OR, and NOT), Medical Subject Headings, and keywords Quality assessment was performed to determine the relevance of the articles using Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools Several steps of assessment and evaluation were taken to select and analyze the relevant articles Results The worldwide pooled prevalence of needle stick injuries among healthcare workers during career time and previous one year was 562% (95% CI: 471, 649) and 324% (95% CI: 220, 448), respectively The career time pooled prevalence of needle stick injuries based on the socioeconomic development and study area was 548% and 551%, respectively, and one-year pooled prevalence of needle stick injury was 260% and 209% Conclusion The review found a high prevalence of occupational exposure to needle stick injury among healthcare workers and suggests the need to improve occupational health and safety services in the healthcare systems

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Worldwide Prevalence of Occupational Exposure to Needle Stick Injury among Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Second victims, defined as healthcare team members being traumatised by an unanticipated clinical event or outcome, are frequent in healthcare. Evidence of this phenomenon in Germany, however, is sparse. Recently, we reported the first construction and validation of a German questionnaire. This study aimed to understand this phenomenon better in a sample of young (<= 35 years) German physicians. The electronic questionnaire (SeViD-I survey) was administered for 6 weeks to a sample of young physicians in training for internal medicine or a subspecialty. All physicians were members of the German Society of Internal Medicine. The questionnaire had three domains - general experience, symptoms, and support strategies - comprising 46 items. Binary logistic regression models were applied to study the influence of various independent factors on the risk of becoming a second victim, the magnitude of symptoms and the time to self-perceived recovery. The response rate was 18% (555/3047). 65% of the participants were female, the mean age was 32 years. 59% experienced second victim incidents in their career so far and 35% during the past 12 months. Events with patient harm and unexpected patient deaths or suicides were the most frequent key incidents. 12% of the participants reported that their self-perceived time to full recovery was more than 1 year or have never recovered. Being female was a risk factor for being a second victim (odds ratio (OR) 2.5) and experiencing a high symptom load (OR 2). Working in acute care was promoting a shorter duration to self-perceived recovery (OR 0.5). Support measures with an exceptionally high approval among second victims were the possibility to discuss emotional and ethical issues, prompt debriefing/crisis intervention after the incident and a safe opportunity to contribute insights to prevent similar events in the future. The second victim phenomenon is frequent among young German physicians in internal medicine. In general, these traumatic events have a potentially high impact on physician health and the care they deliver. A better understanding of second victim traumatisations in Germany and broad implementation of effective support programs are warranted.

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Prevalence of second victims, risk factors and support strategies among young German physicians in internal medicine (SeViD-I survey).

Exposure to major trauma can have significant consequences for workers’ mental health, but common trauma may also result in poor mental health outcomes. This cross-sectional study retrospectively investigated the occurrence of common physical or psychological workplace trauma in 901 health, social service, and trading company workers and studied these experiences in relation to occupational stress, anxiety, and depression. Stress was measured with the effort/reward imbalance (ERI) model while anxiety and depression were evaluated with the Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Scale (GADS). Healthcare workers reported a high frequency of trauma and significantly higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression than other workers. Even in the entire population of workers of the various professional categories, verbal violence (harassment and threats), traffic accidents, home injuries, and family bereavement were significantly associated with high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Major trauma survivors are known to be at increased risk of mental disorders and require support in the workplace, however, even minor repeated emotional trauma and injuries can affect mental health. During mandatory health surveillance, the occupational physician should systematically collect information on minor trauma and mental health outcomes when assessing the occupational fitness of the workers assigned to him.

Common Occupational Trauma: Is There a Relationship with Workers’ Mental Health?

Our study sought to determine the frequency of Needlestick injuries (NSIs) among Healthcare Workers (HCWs) working at governmental hospital and to study the factors that associated with occurrence of NSIs, and to develop recommendations for a comprehensive program for prevention. Retrospective study of all reported cases of NSIs in the period from April 2016 to May 2018 among healthcare workers at a governmental hospital. Incidence of NSIs over 26 months was 8.4% among all participants. Nurses were the most affected staff (52.5%) resulted commonly from disposing syringes (58.9%). In contrast, the incidence of NSIs among physicians was 24.9% where surgical devices were the primary source of NSIs among them (40%). Failure to complete all required hepatitis B vaccination was common among expatriates of the participants of this study. NSIs was common among HCWs participated in this study. Preventive measures should be implemented including adequate hepatitis B immunization.

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Factors associated with needlestick injuries among healthcare workers: implications for prevention

Background Healthcare workers are at high risk of infection from blood-borne pathogens, such as Hepatitis B and C Virus, and Human Immunodeficiency. Occupational exposure to needle-stick injuries (NSIs) continue to have a major health problem in the healthcare systems of developing countries. Thus, this review article aimed to provide the evidence on the prevalence of NSI and associated factors among healthcare workers of developing countries. Methods The studies published from 2012 to 2019 were identified through systematic searches of electronic databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Scopus, Med Nar, and Science Direct. The MeSH terms and/or keywords was used in conjunction with "AND" or "OR" (Boolean logic operators). All identified keywords and an index terms were checked across the included databases. Assessment and evaluation were taken to confirm the quality and relevance of the included articles, followed by extraction and analysis of data. Result Overall, 2021 articles were identified using specified search terms from the initial searches of the literature (2012-2019). A total of 13 articles met eligibility criteria were included in the review. Among 6513 participants, 1009 and 2201 participants involved to determine 1-year and throughout career prevalence, respectively. The prevalence of NSI ranged from 19.9% to 54.0% with an overall prevalence of 35.7% and 38.5 to 100% with an overall prevalence of 64.1% in the previous 1 year and throughout career, respectively. Sex, workload, needle recapping, overuse of injection, and practice of universal precautions, training, occupation, working experience, and personal protective equipment were among the factors associated with the prevalence of NSIs in developing countries. Conclusion The review indicated that NSIs have been identified as one of the most serious issues that affect the health and well-being of healthcare workers in the majority of healthcare systems of developing countries. There is a need to apply safety practices or other measures to reduce the risk of NSIs.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/1348-9585.12179

Prevalence of occupational exposure to needle-stick injury and associated factors among healthcare workers of developing countries: Systematic review.

Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) suffer more than 2 million occupational needle-stick injuries (NSIs) annually. Goal: To determine the global prevalence and causes of NSIs among HCWs. Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, three databases (PubMed, Web of science, and Scopus) were searched for reports from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2018. The random effects model was used to determine the prevalence of NSIs among HCWs. Hoy et al.’s instrument was employed to evaluate the quality of the included studies. Findings: A total of 87 studies performed on 50,916 HCWs in 31 countries worldwide were included in the study. The one-year global pooled prevalence of NSIs among HCWs was 44.5% (95% CI: 35.7, 53.2). Highest prevalence of NSIs occurred in the South East Asia region at 58.2% (95%, CI: 36.7, 79.8). By job category, prevalence of NSIs was highest among dentists at 59.1% (95% CI: 38.8, 79.4), Hypodermic needles were the most common cause of NSIs at 55.1% (95% CI: 41.4, 68.9). Conclusion: The current high prevalence of NSIs among HCWs suggests need to improve occupational health services and needle-stick education programs globally.

https://www.annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/10.5334/aogh.2698/galley/2898/download/

Karen A. Daley

Papers

Global Prevalence and Device Related Causes of Needle Stick Injuries among Health Care Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

The 2013 National Nursing Research Roundtable: advancing the science of chronic illness self-management.

Nurse leaders never stop caring--and learning.