Abstract:
Background: Sharp injuries are a penetrating wound with an instrument that is
potentially contaminated with the body fluid of another person. Health care professionals
who are exposed to sharp injuries like needles, blade, lancets, scissors, and glass item in
their clinical working areas are at high risk of acquiring a serious or fatal infection with
blood borne pathogens. Nurses are also at high risk of occupational hazards due to the
nature of their working situation.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of sharp injury and its associated factors among
nurses working in public hospitals in west shoa zone, Oromia, Ethiopia, 2021.
Method: Institutional based Cross-sectional study was conducted among 305 nurses
working in West Shoa zone public hospitals, Ethiopia from August 1 to 30/2021. Simple
random sampling technique was used to select the study participants from eight hospitals.
Self-administered questionnaires and observational check lists were used to collect data.
Data were cleaned and entered into Epi-data version 3.1 then exported to SPSS version
25 for analysis. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean and standard deviation
were computed to describe variables of the study. Variables with P-value < 0.25 on
bivariate analysis were entered to multivariable logistic regression analysis and reported
as Adjusted Odds ratios (AOR) with 95 % confidence interval (CI). P-value <0.05 was
used to determine statistical significance.
Result: The prevalence of sharp injuries among nurses was 35.5% with 95% CI of 29.7%
to 40.9%. Unmarried nurses [AOR= 2.014; 95% CI,(1.013, 4.003)], Diploma nurses
[AOR=5.972; 95% CI,(2.725, 13.089)],working unit[AOR=4.311; 95% CI (1.080,
17.206)] and training on infection prevention [AOR=2.240; 95% CI (1.104, 4.546)] were
significantly associated with sharp injury.
Conclusion and recommendation:-The magnitude of sharp injury in this study was high
among nurses. To reduce the occurrence and consequences of sharp injury it needs
collaborative intervention on factors like; educational status, current working unit and
training on infection prevention which are a big homework for West shoa zone public
hospital managers, nursing service directors and higher level health sector managers
