Prevalence Of Sharp Injury And Associated Factors Among Nurses Working In Public Hospitals In West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

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