Monitoring and protection strategies for blood-borne occupational exposure in a tertiary traditional Chinese medicine hospital from 2014 to 2023
Objective To analyze the epidemiological characteristics,causes and disposal of blood-borne occupa-tional exposure of health care workers(HCWs)in a tertiary traditional Chinese medicine hospital,and provide ref-erence for reducing exposure risks.Methods Data on blood-borne occupational exposure reported by a traditional Chinese medicine hospital from January 2014 to December 2023 were collected retrospectively,and analyzed descrip-tively.Results The reported incidence of blood-borne occupational exposure among HCWs from 2014 to 2023 was 3.08%(527/17 098).Among them,55 cases had damaged skin or mucous membrane exposure,with an incidence of 0.32%;472 cases had sharp device injuries,with an incidence of 2.76%.Difference between the two was statis-tically significant(x2=335.125,P<0.001).The main characteristcs of blood-borne occupational exposures were sharp device injuries(89.56%),female(83.49%),HCWs with less than 5 years of service(42.69%)and inter-mediate professional titles(67.93%).Damaged skin or mucous membrane exposure mainly occurred in doctors(58.18%),while sharp device injury occurred mainly in nurses(73.73%).Department of internal medicine had the highest exposure to sharp device injuries(42.80%),and operating room had the highest damaged skin or mucous membranes exposure(47.27%).The main occurrence timing of sharp device injuries were needle pulling(21.82%),disposal of used sharp devices and randomly placed sharp devices(20.34%),as well as injection,puncture,acu-puncture,tube sealing or blood collection(19.49%).71.73%exposure sources were clear,and the top three detec-ted blood-borne pathogens were hepatitis B virus(70.86%),hepatitis C virus(11.92%),and Treponema pallidum(9.27%).The correct disposal rate after exposure was 88.05%.Conclusion From 2014 to 2023,blood-borne oc-cupational exposure in this traditional Chinese medicine hospital was mainly caused by sharp device injuries.Nurses experienced more incidents during needle pulling and sharp device handling.Damaged skin or mucous membrane ex-posure was mainly due to splashing patient's blood into the eyes of doctors during surgery.
occupational exposuresharp device injurydamaged skinmucosal exposureretrospective analysistraditional Chinese medicine hospital