STM Article Repository

Introduction: Sub-Saharan Africa is home to over 28 million HIV-positive individuals, and over 95% of HIV infections occur in poor nations there. In Ghana, there are no official mechanisms in place that allow individuals to report Needle Stick Injuries (NSIs) and receive advice specific to occupational health. Health care management does not prioritize it because of financial restrictions, and HCWs have not yet recognized it as a significant problem. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of needle stick injuries among staff at Savelugu Hospital.

Methods: Savelugu Hospital health trainees provided data for a descriptive cross-sectional study design. Three hundred and thirty-three health professionals were interviewed using the closed-ended and open-ended questionnaire. A simple random sampling method was employed to select research participants. A 95% confidence level was applied to all statistical analyses, and a P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Findings: The age distribution is 34.00 with a standard deviation of 6.3. Of the 122, more over half (55.2%) were nurses, and 96.6 percent had infection prevention control (IPC) training. The majority of respondents (87.2%) reported having sustained a needle stick injury; 62.1% of those who suffered NSI did so using a hypodermic needle. According to the study, needle stick injuries were significantly correlated with age (p=0.031), sex (p=0.045), and highest educational status (p=0.004). The following are contributing factors to needle stick injuries: lack of guidelines on handling healthcare sharps (65.0%), poor housekeeping (20.7%), overuse of medical sharps (36.9%), unsafe medical sharps (36.9%), inadequate supply of barrier products (57.1%), unclear work procedure (57.1%), and unsafe practices (68.5%).

In conclusion: our study showed that among healthcare workers at Savelugu Hospital, NSIs were highly prevalent. The majority of NSIs were caused by hypodermic needles, one of the common sharps used in hospitals, and most responders had suffered an injury between one and two times in the past. Needlestick injuries were correlated with age, sex, and educational attainment.