Effects of Patient Behaviour and Work Experience in Needle Stick Injuries among Healthcare Practitioners in Tertiary Hospitals, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: The behaviour of patients plays a vital role in reducing the risk of needle-stick injuries. Uncooperative or agitated patients can make it challenging for healthcare workers to administer procedures safely, more difficult when the healthcare worker does not have enough experience to handle such. Hence, this study investigated the effects of patient behaviour and work experience in needle stick injuries among healthcare practitioners in tertiary hospitals, Rivers State. Materials and Methods: The study adopted descriptive correlational survey design with a population of 4,100 healthcare workers in the three functional tertiary health institutions in Rivers state (University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Rivers State University Teaching Hospital and Madonna University Teaching Hospital). A sample size of 879 was predicted using Cochran formula and a multi-stage sampling procedure. Pearson Products Moment Correlation was used to obtain a Reliability coefficient value of 0.82. Instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Predictors of Needle-stick Injuries among Healthcare Workers Questionnaire” (PNIHWQ) and analyzed using statistical tools such as mean, percentage, frequency, standard deviation and logistic regression at 0.05 level of significance. Findings: The result of the study showed that, 7% of years of work experience predict needle-stick injury among healthcare workers in tertiary health institutions. The result indicated that years of work experience is about 7 times more likely to predict needle-stick injury among healthcare workers. The extent to which patient behaviour constituted a predictor of needle-stick injuries among healthcare workers in tertiary health institutions, Rivers State was high as the grand mean of 2.71 and 0.79 was greater than the criterion mean of 2.50. In addition, patient behaviour significantly predict needle-stick injuries among healthcare workers (F-value = 30.148, p<0.05). Conclusion: It was concluded that needle-stick injury was predicted to a high extent by years of work experience and patient behaviour. the study recommended among others, that the managers of health institutions should establish safety inspection teams to evaluate adherence to safety protocols at all stages of medical practices to reduce incidence of NSI.