title: Incidence rate of needlestick and sharps injuries in 67 Japanese hospitals: a national surveillance study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Determining incidence rates of needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) using data from multiple hospitals may help hospitals to compare their in-house data with national averages and thereby institute relevant measures to minimize NSIs. We aimed to determine the incidence rate of NSIs using the nationwide EPINet surveillance system.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data were analyzed from 5,463 cases collected between April 2009 and March 2011 from 67 Japanese HIV/AIDS referral hospitals that participated in EPINet-Japan. The NSI incidence rate was calculated as the annual number of cases with NSIs per 100 occupied beds, according to the demographic characteristics of the injured person, place, timing, device, and the patients' infectious status. The NSI incidence rates according to hospital size were analyzed by a non-parametric test of trend. The mean number of cases with NSIs per 100 occupied beds per year was 4.8 (95% confidence interval, 4.1-5.6) for 25 hospitals with 399 or fewer beds, 6.7 (5.9-7.4) for 24 hospitals with 400-799 beds, and 7.6 (6.7-8.5) for 18 hospitals with 800 or more beds (p-trend<0.01). NSIs frequently occurred in health care workers in their 20 s; the NSI incidence rate for this age group was 2.1 (1.6-2.5) for hospitals having 399 or fewer beds, 3.5 (3.0-4.1) for hospitals with 400-799 beds, and 4.5 (3.9-5.0) for hospitals with 800 or more beds (p-trend<0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The incidence rate of NSIs tended to be higher for larger hospitals and in workers aged less than 40 years; injury occurrence was more likely to occur in places such as patient rooms and operating rooms. Application of the NSI incidence rates by hospital size, as a benchmark, could allow individual hospitals to compare their NSI incidence rates with those of other institutions, which could facilitate the development of adequate control strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Research, The Institute for Science of Labour, Kawasaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yoshikawa
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wada
authors.forename: Jong Ja
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Toshihiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mitsuda
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kidouchi
authors.forename: Hitomi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kurosu
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Morisawa
authors.forename: Mayumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aminaka
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Okubo
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Kyoji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moriya
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D016602:Needlestick Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D055815:Young Adult