Study of Compliance of Surgical & Medical ICUs to the Process of Preventing Needle Stick Injuries & Blood/Body Fluid Exposures

Healthcare workers are at a risk of infection with blood borne infections during the course of their work. Over 90% of these infections occur in low-income countries and most are preventable.¹ The focus of the study was to find out the compliance of the ICU staff to a process designed to prevent needle stick in Surgical & Medical ICUs of a tertiary care hospital. Cross-sectional primary data was collected using a process bundle (checklist) to study 100 samples from Surgical (50 samples) and Medical (50 samples) ICUs in June 2014. After the analysis it was found that overall compliance to the process was better in Medical ICU than in Surgical ICU and reasons for non-compliance were related to un-awareness and ignorance of the staff.