Blood Borne Disease | Nursing Assignment

Running Head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note

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Background:
Problem:
The prevalence rate of the blood borne disease among the healthcare workers is
increasing day by day. Rendering to Cui et al. (2018), around 16,000 hepatitis B virus, 66,000
hepatitis C virus and 1000 hepatitis immunodeficiency virus is observed among the healthcare
workers. The risk factor identified behind the increasing rate of the blood borne disease is the
occupational hazard. One of the major occupational hazards that contribute to the prevalence rate
is the sharp injuries.
Significance:
Needle stick injuries or sharp injuries are frequently observed in the healthcare setting.
According to Goel et al. (2017), sharp injuries are the most common wounds that has been
observed among the nurse and other workers of the health care unit. According to WHO, (2019),
1 out of every 10 healthcare workers, suffers from occupational injury every year. Sharp injuries
amongst the healthcare employees is expected to cause blood borne disease among the healthcare
workers due to the injury caused by the contaminated needles or the sharp objects which are
contaminated with the blood borne pathogens.
Purpose:
Blood borne disease amongst the healthcare workers is frequently observed in the
healthcare setting. The reason behind the disease is supposed to be the occupational injury
(Brewer et al., 2017). Hence, in order to evaluate the major reason behind the incidence of the

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blood borne infection amongst the health care workers the review has been conducted. The
primary purpose of the review is to evaluate the reason behind the occurrence of the blood borne
infection among the health care workers.
Objective:
The objective of the reading is the comparison of sharp injuries with the other
occupational hazard in causing blood borne infection among the health care workers.
Research question:
“Does the sharp injuries or occupational injuries are the reason of occupational blood
borne infections than other workplace hazards that increases the number of blood borne
diseases within a specific timeframe?”
Relevance of study to the PICOT question:
According to Gabr et al., (2018), the rate of needle stick damages among the healthcare
workers is high as compared to any other occupational injury. From the study, it can be stated
that needle stick injury impose negative impression on the health of the healthcare workers by
increasing the chance of the blood borne infection. The injury is caused by the needle or the
sharp injuries contaminated by the blood of the patient.
In a survey conducted by Alemayehu et al., (2016), the healthcare workers reported that
they frequently experience sharp injuries while handling the patient and is also exposed to the
body fluids of the patient, which increases their chance of getting infected with the blood borne
infections such as, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV.

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Rendering to the PICOT question, the healthcare workers are at the higher risk of getting
infected with the sharp injuries. As in the case of both the articles that has been selected, the
participant are the healthcare workers, therefore their response suggests that they are more
exposed to the blood borne disease (indicator) by sharp injuries as compared to other
occupational injuries (comparison). Hence it can be stated that the intervention and the
comparison of the article has been identified in the formulated PICOT question.
Method of the study:
In this article, the method that has been selected to gather response from the health care
works is the predesigned sheet for the collection of the data in a cross sectional study conducted
on total 2260 healthcare staff for 3 months (Gabr et al., 2018).
In this article, the method that has been used to collect the data is the self-administered
questionnaire by selecting 820 healthcare workers with the aid of case-control study (Alemayehu
et al ., 2016).
Therefore, by analyzing the method used for the data collection in both the articles, it can
be stated that one article uses cross sectional study design to select the respondents and collected
the data by using predesigned sheet, to gather information regarding the prevalence rate of the
injury. Whereas the in the other article the respondents are selected by using case control and
data is collected through self-administered questionnaire to study the two groups case and
control.

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Article 1 (Gabr et al., 2018):
Cross sectional study
Strength: Quick and easy to conduct to gather information regarding the prevalence rate
Limitation: As both the outcome and the exposure are assessed simultaneously, hence no
relationship between the two is established (Page et al., 2016).
Article 2 (Alemayehu et al., 2016):
Case control study:
Strength: Less costly and less time consuming to compare two groups
Limitation: They are not efficient for the rare exposure (Pearce, 2016).
Result of the study:
The key findings observed in the review conducted by the (Gabr et al., 2018), is that the
hazard of needle stick injuries amongst the healthcare workers is high which if not considered
can give rise to blood borne pathogen. It can be reduced by conducting educational session about
the strategies that can be used to reduce sharp injuries.
The key findings observed in the study directed by the (Alemayehu et al., 2016) is that,
26.4% of the total health care workers has been infected with sharp injuries once during their
clinical practice and 36.1% of the total health care staff has been exposed to the body fluids of
the patient. Both of them increase the hazard of blood borne infection.

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From both the study, it is concluded that sharp damages or exposure to the body liquids
may give rise to the blood borne infection among the healthcare workers and the reason for the
frequent sharp injuries such as, lack of hospital policies, lack of using gloves, increased working
hours has been discussed (Gabr et al., 2018). Apart from that strategies to reduce the injury such
as, proper education, implication of policies is also discussed which can be used in the nursing
practice o reduce the blood borne infection by the sharp objects (Alemayehu et al., 2016).
Outcomes comparison:
The anticipated outcome of the PICOT question is that the sharp injuries is more
responsible for causing the blood infection among the healthcare workers as compared to any
other occupational injury.
The outcome that has been obtained by the help of two literatures is that sharp injuries are
frequent in the healthcare setting and is majorly responsible for the blood borne infection, which
provides answer to the PICOT question and is similar to the anticipated outcome of the PICOT
question.

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Reference:
Alemayehu, T. A. D. E. S. S. E., Worku, A., & Assefa, N. (2016). Sharp injury and exposure to
blood and body fluids among health care workers in health care centers of eastern
Ethiopia. Int J Occup Environ Med (The IJOEM), 7(3 July), 714-172\
Brewer, J. D., Elston, D. M., Vidimos, A. T., Rizza, S. A., & Miller, S. J. (2017). Managing
sharps injuries and other occupational exposures to HIV, HBV, and HCV in the
dermatology office. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 77(5), 946-951.
Cui, Z., Zhu, J., Zhang, X., Wang, B., & Li, X. (2018). Sharp injuries: a cross-sectional study
among health care workers in a provincial teaching hospital in China. Environmental
health and preventive medicine, 23(1), 2.
Gabr, H. M., El-Badry, A. S., & Younis, F. E. (2018). Risk Factors Associated with Needlestick
Injuries among Health Care Workers in Menoufia Governorate, Egypt. The international
journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 9(2), 63.
Goel, V., Kumar, D., Lingaiah, R., & Singh, S. (2017). Occurrence of needlestick and injuries
among health-care workers of a tertiary care teaching hospital in North India. Journal of
laboratory physicians, 9(1), 20.
Page, M. J., Shamseer, L., Altman, D. G., Tetzlaff, J., Sampson, M., Tricco, A. C., ... & Moher,
D. (2016). Epidemiology and reporting characteristics of systematic reviews of
biomedical research: a cross-sectional study. PLoS medicine, 13(5), e1002028.
Pearce, N. (2016). Analysis of matched case-control studies. bmj, 352, i969.

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WHO. (2019). WHO | Needlestick injuries. Retrieved 26 August 2019, from
https://www.who.int/occupational_health/topics/needinjuries/en/