Preventing blood-borne infection risk

Moreover, could some of the solutions designed to prevent injury be unwittingly introducing other unseen infection risks? LOUISE FRAMPTON reports.

 At the Infection Prevention Society’s annual conference, held in Bournemouth, the risk of infection posed by sharps injuries was high on the agenda. While many healthcare workers are aware of the standard precautions they should be taking, in order to prevent the risk of blood-borne infections, ensuring consistent adherence with prevention measures remains a serious challenge. Dr Jayne Cutter, a lecturer from The College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, presented the results of a survey of six Welsh NHS Trusts which highlighted some of the important factors associated with adverse exposure to blood and body fluids among theatre staff. The research, which included a survey of 315 theatre staff, also included semi-structured interviews with 16 individuals to gain a more detailed insight into some of the answers provided by respondents. Interviews were further conducted with the senior infection control nurses for each of the Trusts. Unsurprisingly, the survey found that sharps injuries are common in theatre staff, who work with sharps as part of their daily activities – usually inside cavities where they are often unable to see what they are doing. Surgeons are injured more frequently than nurses due to the nature of their role, but the rates of injury varied between respondents. Typically, the rates of sharps injuries were in the high single figures and low double figures, over a period of five years, but reached as high as 60 and even 250 incidents for some individuals. The participants were all well aware that precautions could reduce the likelihood of injuries and associated infection, but did not apply these universal precautions consistently. “With the exception of not passing sharps from hand to hand, very few respondents consistently used standard precautions, as they should, in th They admitted making judgements based on factors such as the nationality, sexuality and suspected lifestyle of the patient, before deciding what level of threat they posed to staff in terms of infection risk. This ultimately influenced their decisions on what precautions they used,” Dr Cutter explained. “This is not in the spirit of standard precautions... We have to assess whether the way that we are providing education is truly effective. People who have been qualified for shorter periods of time actually complied better with standard precautions than those who had been qualified for longer,” she commented. Possible reasons include the fact that staff may forget what they have been taught, over time. Alternatively, there may be a tendency for people to practice in the way they were first taught, rather than to adopt new behaviour.

Training issues