Occupational Injuries and Exposure to Blood Borne Pathogens among Nursing Professionals

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

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Summary of clinical issue
Occupational injuries and exposure to blood borne pathogens has become one of the
critical and significant healthcare risks that have been observed in recent times (Gabr, El-Badry
& Younis, 2018). These injuries are mostly percutaneous injuries caused by the sharp needles
and sharp pose and become the reason of transmission of Hepatitis B Virus, Human
Immunodeficiency Virus, and other blood borne pathogens (Cui et al., 2018). In a recent research
conducted by Obirikorang et al. (2019), it was mentioned by the researchers that in a recent study
by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention USA, more than 384,000 sharp injuries were
registered in healthcare facilities and in majority of these, these were observed in the trainee,
student or enrolled nursing professionals.
Statistical information collected from the Alemayehu, Worku and Assefa (2016)
mentioned that there are multiple aspects due to which such injuries and incidences increases.
These include lower awareness of the usage of sharp objectives and lack of awareness of their
infections, improper ratio of healthcare professionals to the patients, due to which the care
facility becomes crowded and lack of training among nursing professionals (Ong et al., 2019).
Besides this, lack of usage of personal protective equipment is another reason due to which
majority of the nursing professionals suffers from such sharp injuries (El-Melligy, Saad-Hussein
& Khalil, 2016). Hence, this is the clinical issue which has been targeted for this assignment, as
it increases the workplace hazard for the nurses and increases their risk of infection.
PICOT question
Problem Indicator Comparison Outcome Timely

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
sharp injuries
and occupational
injuries
blood borne
injuries
other
occupational
hazards
increases number
of blood borne
diseases
within a specific
time period
The PICOT 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?
Literature Evaluation Table
Search strategy (conducted in PubMed)
The search strategy was conducted in the Pub Med databases and the last five years, with
full text research articles and clinical trials were conducted so all the appropriate research articles