[Potentially hazardous exposure to blood among hospital personnel. A retrospective study of systematically registered exposure during the period 1990-1994].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-reported incidence of needlesticks and other exposures to patients' blood or body fluids among employees at Glostrup County Hospital, Copenhagen. Furthermore the nature of and circumstances under which these exposures occurred were explored. Four hundred and thirty-two reports of exposure were received from 389 health care workers during a period of four years (1990-1994). Ninety-three percent of the exposures were percutaneous, 7% mucocutaneous. The incidence rates of exposure per full-time employee per year were as follows: Midwives: 0.11; doctors: 0.093; laboratory - technicians: 0.084; registered nurses: 0.068; auxiliary nurses: 0.025; porters: 0.024 and housekeeping staff: 0.016. Accidents related to disposal containers, where the health care worker is injured while disposing a needle or handling the disposal container, account for 10% of all percutaneous exposures. Improper placing of sharp instruments account for 7% and recapping is responsible for 6% of all percutaneous exposures. Mucocutaneous exposure was caused by unexpected splash during the procedure, in 86% of the cases the conjunctivae were contaminated. No occupationally acquired infections were observed. It is concluded that occupational exposure to blood and body fluids among health care workers is considerable. To reduce the frequency of blood exposure education of the health care workers and safer equipment are needed. A good strategy for preventing exposures must be based on careful registration of the accidents, which is obtained by encouraging reporting of the exposures among the health care workers. Data base registration would be desirable.