Lindiwe Zungu
University of South Africa, South Africa
Title: Occupational exposures to patients’ body fluids among health care workers in a university hospital in Ethiopia
Biography
Biography: Lindiwe Zungu
Abstract
Globally, exposures to patients’ body fluids (BFs) are common occupational hazards among health care workers (HCWs); and over 90% of such occupational exposures occur in developing countries such as Ethiopia. However, there is paucity of data to quantify the magnitude and circumstances around the occurrence of these occupational exposures among HCWs in Ethiopia. The study aimed at describing the patterns of exposure to patients’ BFs among HCWs at a tertiary hospital in Ethiopia. A contextual descriptive cross-sectional design was used for this study and self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data. The one year and professional life prevalence of occupational exposures to patients’ BFs among HCWs was 33.5% and 66.5% respectively. Circumstances that led to participants’ exposures to patients’ BFs include needle stick injuries to fingers and splashes to the eyes (82.4%); conducting procedures including withdrawal of blood (10.8%) and inserting intravenous infusions (8.1%) as well as recapping of used needles (12.2%). Findings of this study generally indicated that occupational exposures to patients’ BFs of different types and circumstances were common among all categories of HCWs in the study site. This high finding of BFs exposures should not be over looked. HCWs should be encouraged to adhere to universal precautionary measures to prevent the exposures to patients’ BFs. Furthermore, availability of and compliance with post-exposure prophylaxis should be strengthened