Prevalence of non-sterile occupational injuries among students of modern medicine in Assam, India

To study the prevalence and associated factors of non-sterile occupational injuries among students of modern medicine in Assam. A cross sectional survey was conducted using a self-administered, pre-tested, structured questionnaire in English language adapted from the CDC workbook for designing, implementing and evaluating a sharps injury prevention program 2008. All the final year medical dental and nursing students ffrom the three medical colleges and one dental college in Assam were included in the study. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis were done using SPSS version 17.0. Sharp injuries were highest among nursing students (50.5percent) followed by dental (45.2 percent) and medical (30.0 percent) students where as body fluid contact were highest among medical students (37. 7 percent) followed by dental (32.3 percent) and nursing (30.3 percent) students. Gender, discipline, residence, procedure, perception of risk for infections and recapping of needle were the predictors for sharp injuries and when adjusted for other independent variability procedure and recapping of needle were the most important predictors of sharp injuries where as procedure, awareness about transmission of injection, perception of risk for injections, type of exposure and use of doctor's apron where the predictors for body fluid Contact and after adjusting for other independent variables procedure and use of doctors apron were the most important predictors for body fluid contact. Non-sterile occupational injuries among the students of modern medicine are associated with factors which can be modifiedby intensive education and training of the students. Policy changes at the institute level can help in this direction.