Blood and Body Fluid Exposure Related Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Hospital Based Health Care Providers in United Arab Emirates

Abstract

ObjectivesKnowledge, attitudes, and practices of healthcare providers related to occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens were assessed in a tertiary-care hospital in Middle East.MethodsA cross-sectional study was undertaken using a self-administered questionnaire based on 3 paired (infectivity known vs. not known-suspected) case studies. Only 17 out of 230 respondents had an exposure in the 12 months prior to the survey and of these, only 2 had complied fully with the hospital's exposure reporting policy.ResultsIn the paired case studies, the theoretical responses of participating health professionals showed a greater preference for initiating self-directed treatment with antivirals or immunisation rather than complying with the hospital protocol, when the patient was known to be infected. The differences in practice when exposed to a patient with suspected blood pathogens compared to patient known to be infected was statistically significant (p < 0.001) in all 3 paired cases. Failure to test an infected patient's blood meant that an adequate risk assessment and appropriate secondary prevention could not be performed, and reflected the unwillingness to report the occupational exposure.ConclusionTherefore, the study demonstrated that healthcare providers opted to treat themselves when exposed to patient with infectious disease, rather than comply with the hospital reporting and assessment protocol.

Assessment of Reporting, Attitudes and Knowledge About the Stab Incidents and Professional Risk of Viral Infection among Health Care Professionals in Primary Health Care

“…All health care workers who experience any form of occupational exposure to blood or other body fluids and tissues of patients, which may contain pathogens that are transmitted by blood (especially HBV, HCV and HIV), should be reported to elected family medicine practitioner and responsible occupational medicine institution (11). A recent pilot study conducted in Croatian hospitals (9) showed that only approximately 5% of health workers in Croatia reported stab incidents and exposure to blood or infections that are transmitted by blood, which means that approximately 95% of incidents of this kind remain unreported.…”

“…In our sample the situation is slightly better 21%, but no one reported the incident to the occupational medicine institute which needs to prevent occupational hazard. It should be noted that only those who report incidents receive appropriate evaluation and treatment after the exposure, which means that the others had not even been offered to appropriate assessment and management of risks after exposure (11, 13). …”

“…Inclusion factor for the study was based on the risk of jobs for blood transmitted infections (target population), and estimates based on previous findings (11-16). Research covers health professionals (doctors and nurses) working in a family medicine, dentistry, laboratory, medical imaging and emergency medical care.…”

“…All this implies guide directed activities that should be carried out immediately after the exposure and assessment based on the characteristics of the source-patient and/or health care professional who has had incident and the nature of the incident. Tertiary prevention involves counseling of exposed individuals about safe treatment and rehabilitation, with the suppression of relapse and recurrence of disease and rehabilitation (10, 11). One of the most important aspects of the reporting is that the sample of a patient’s blood can be tested as part of the risk assessment.…”

Awareness of blood-borne infections and burden of occupational exposures to blood and body fluids among health care personnel in a tertiary care teaching hospital

“…[3] Failure to report an exposure increases the likelihood of consequential infection by precluding testing of source patient for BBIs and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to the exposed person. [4] In addition, formal reporting of exposures is required for generation of data for formulating a uniform national policy for the prevention and treatment of occupationally acquired BBIs. OEs can be prevented or reduced by observing “universal precautions” (UPs) and employing safe strategies at workplace.…”