Needlestick injuries among clinical students at the College of Health Science, Makerere University. A cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Introduction: More than 2 million occupational needle-stick injuries are sustained annually by Healthcare workers, including clinical students. Averagely, a healthcare worker in Africa suffers two to four needle stick injuries per year while handling sharp objects in their routine work activities, which exposes them to blood-borne pathogens such as HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C. This doesn’t spare future health care workers in training (the students) while providing treatment at the patients’ bedsides and other forms of patient care on different wards leading to increased morbidities and mortalities amongst them. We assessed the prevalence, knowledge, and practices of needle stick injuries among clinical students at Makerere University College of health science Method: A total of 259 clinical nursing, dental surgery, radiology, and medical students were selected randomly to be involved in the study after obtaining consent from them. A cross-sectional study was conducted, where an electronic questionnaire developed by Kobo toolbox was sent to participants on their whats app contacts, and the data collected was entered into computer software for analysis using SPSS version 20.0. Results: The prevalence of needle-stick injury was 42.4% among the participants. Medical students (58.7%) sustained more Needle-sticks than students of other programs. Of those who sustained needle stick injuries, more than half reported the incidence to have occurred only once (65.1%) in their first clinical year (67.9%) and on the emergency ward (56.0%). Half of the participants (57.2%) had good knowledge regarding needle stick injury, with a mean knowledge score of 75.9% (SD:19.3%). The reasons for sustaining the pricks identified were non-cooperative patients (78.6%) and lack of skill (70.0%). Only 65.1% of those who sustained the needle-sticks reported the incidences to the responsible authorities; those who didn’t report gave reasons for not reporting as the injury being minor so they didn’t worry and the patient telling them that they were HIV negative. Sex (p=0.025), study program (p<0.001), history of injection administration (p=0.021), and assisting in the removal of sharps (p=0.012) were the factors associated with good knowledge on needle stick injury. Nursing students[aOR: 0.4, 95%CI: 0.2-0.9, p=0.024)], dental surgery students[aOR: 0.4, 95%CI: 0.2-0.8, p=0.015] and medical radiography students [aOR: 0.2, 95%CI: 0-1, p=0.051] had less knowledge on needlestick injuries compared to medical students. Conclusion and Recommendation: There is a high prevalence of needle-stick injuries among clinical students, with medical students having a better knowledge as compared to nursing, dental surgery, and radiography students, yet a larger number of them were poor at practices concerning needle-stick injuries. We recommend that the college administration intensifies the hands-on teaching in skills laboratory sessions to preclinical students to improve their knowledge and practices regarding NSIs.