Prevention of Needle-Stick Injuries in Healthcare Facilities: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVE To estimate the summary effectiveness of different needle-stick injury (NSI)-prevention interventions. DESIGN We conducted a meta-analysis of English-language articles evaluating methods for reducing needle stick, sharp, or percutaneous injuries published from 2002 to 2012 identified using PubMed and Medline EBSCO databases. Data were extracted using a standardized instrument. Random effects models were used to estimate the summary effectiveness of 3 interventions: training alone, safety-engineered devices (SEDs) alone, and the combination of training and SEDs. SETTING Healthcare facilities, mainly hospitals PARTICIPANTS Healthcare workers including physicians, midwives, and nurses RESULTS From an initial pool of 250 potentially relevant studies, 17 studies met our inclusion criteria. Six eligible studies evaluated the effectiveness of training interventions, and the summary effect of the training intervention was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.50-0.89). The summary effect across the 5 studies that assessed the efficacy of SEDs was 0.51 (95% CI, 0.40-0.64). A total of 8 studies evaluated the effectiveness of training plus SEDs, with a summary effect of 0.38 (95% CI, 0.28-0.50). CONCLUSION Training combined with SEDs can substantially reduce the risk of NSIs.

Impact of Safety-Engineered Devices on the Incidence of Occupational Blood and Body Fluid Exposures Among Healthcare Personnel in an Academic Facility, 2000–2014

“…14 According to a recent meta-analysis, training, safety-engineered devices, and training combined with safety-engineered devices reduced the rate of needlestick injuries by 34%, 49%, and 62%, respectively. 15 Our study identified that a considerable proportion of percutaneous injuries are now associated with safety-engineered devices. Further, the frequency of percutaneous injuries associated with safety-engineered devices is now similar to the level of overall exposures to mucous membrane/ non-intact skin, suggesting the necessity for improving measures to prevent exposures from the use of HCP-activated safety-engineered devices as well as conventional devices.…”

“…We demonstrated significant overall reduction in BBFE and percutaneous injuries that may be in part due to the impact of safety-engineered devices and supported previous studies showing successful reduction of overall percutaneous injuries. 11,14,15 Notably, safety-engineered devices worked well to decrease the incidence of percutaneous injuries from the 6 37 2 11 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 4 Total 745 1716 227 367 38 125 122 16 66 51 47 629 2001 Act to 2006, but this positive impact of safety-engineered devices stabilized after 2006. Therefore, we need new interventions aimed at further reducing the injuries among HCP in addition to using safety-engineered devices.…”

The fear of needles: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Other examples of novel approaches to replace typical injection procedures include microneedles, mouth strips, nanopatches, mucosal administration, and edibles (Ravi, Sadhna, Nagpaal, & Chawla, ; Saroja, Lakshmi, & Bhaskaran, ). Such needle‐free methods could also potentially reduce needle‐stick injuries which pose safety concerns in healthcare settings (Tarigan, Cifuentes, Quinn, & Kriebel, ).…”

Preanalytical external quality assessment of the Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine and CROQALM: finding undetected weak spots

“…Although being in effect for several years, The Directive 2010/32/EU “Prevention from sharp injuries in the hospital and healthcare sector” ( 12 ) has not been implemented in Croatian laboratories. There is an ample of evidence that safe-sharp laboratory materials significantly lower risk of needle-stick injuries ( 13 ). Even though the main reason for delaying implementation of safe-sharp equipment is increased cost for the laboratory, the overall cost for the diagnostics and treatment of needle-stick injuries for the healthcare in general is higher ( 14 , 15 ).…”