Prevalence of Needle Stick Injuries and Some Related Factors among the Nursing Students

Needle stick injuries are one of the most important ways of transmitting pathogens to health care workers. Such injuries may impose some mental distress and costs on the injured persons and heath care organizations. The first step for providing the preventive strategies in these injuries is to identify the prevalence and factors associated with them. The aim of the current study therefore was to determine the prevalence and some factors related to these injuries among nursing students in Birjand city, 2012. 214 nursing students participated in this descriptive- analytical study. Participants were studying nursing at Birjand University of Medical Sciences and Islamic Azad University, Birjand Branch and selected by Concensus Method. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire, consisting three parts. The gathered data were analyzed by Duncan's multiple range test statistic and Kruskal-Wallis in SPSS v.16. Of the 214 nursing students with a mean age of 21±4.8, 121 (56.3%) had suffered a needle stick. The majority of these exposures occurred after injection and before discarding of the needle (40.5%) (p=0.00013). Also, about of actions after injury, the most important steps were washing with soap and water (34%), reporting to the instructor (27%) and pressing of injury location (23%) (p=0.00012). The highest rate of needle stick injuries was observed among female students (57.7%) who were single and studying at fourth semesters (33.2%) (p=0.00032). Due to the high prevalence of needle stick injuries in the current study, appropriate strategies are needed to be developed to prevent these events. The focus of these strategies particularly should be after injection and before throwing needles. The results also remind the necessity of providing the useful education about the appropriate measures and recommended protocols to needle stick injuries among the nursing students.