Constant incidence rates of needle-stick injury paradoxically suggest modest preventive effect of sharps disposal system.
Does placement of impenetrable sharps disposal systems in hospitals reduce needle-stick injury? To study this question, annual health questionnaires were distributed on a quarterly basis to all 8000 employees in an academic medical center in a large eastern US metropolitan city asking each employee whether he or she had experienced a needle-stick injury since the last questionnaire. Questionnaires from active floor nurses were separated and hand tallied in 1987, 1989, and 1990, the latter 2 years being after impenetrable sharps disposal systems had been placed at nursing stations and in individual patients rooms. Total needle sticks in staff nurses reported during the 3 years (20.5%, 23.2%, 21.8%, not significant) did not decrease in the last 2 years. Simultaneously, hospital purchases of needle-containing devices increased 13.5%. Thus a constant reported needle-stick incidence rate may paradoxically represent a modest preventive effect of a hospital sharps-disposal system.
Smith
D A
DA
Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY 10029.
Eisenstein
H C
HC
Esrig
C
C
Godbold
J
J
D004869:Equipment Safety; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008506:Medical Waste; D016602:Needlestick Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D012037:Refuse Disposal / Q000379:methods*
D008506:Medical Waste