Bloodborne Pathogen Exposure and Risk Factors in Non-Hospital Based Healthcare Workers

摘要

The purpose of this three-year epidemiological study of registered nurses (RNs) employed in a wide range of non-hospital health care settings was fivefold: first, to determine the rate of blood/body fluid exposure incidents$ second, to characterize and assess exposure incident risk factors$ third$ to compare risk factors, rates of injury (using a measure of person time as the denominator), and availability/use of safety devices between a sub-set of non-hospital and hospital based RNs with similar responsibilities$ fourth, to identify barriers to the adoption of safe work practices (i.e., Standard Precautions (SP))$ and fifth, to identify opportunities to reduce the risk of exposure incidents in non-hospital-based RNs. This study was especially important for two reasons: (1) risk assessment data on blood/body fluid exposure for non-hospital based health care worker (HCW) subgroups are generally extremely sparse, including non-hospital-based RNs, even though non-hospital based HCWs represent approximately 50% of all HCWs in the U.S. and (2) information on the prevalence of effective primary and secondary prevention strategies employed in non-hospital settings is equally sparse.