Occupational Exposure To HIV And Relevant Protection Among Medical Workers In Lu’an City

Objectives To understand and master the HIV occupational exposure of medical staff, questionnaires about the occupational exposure and prevention measures were conducted respectively in medical units in Lu’an areas, and in order to provide evidence for protection measures.Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in the hospitals of Lu’an areas about the occupational exposure and prevention of the medical staff. Study on the spots were two municipal hospitals in the Lu’an city, one county-level hospital, five town-level hospitals. The objects of the study were selected by cluster sampling method and the questionnaires were filled by themselves from December in 2013 to January 20 th in 2014. Five hundred questionnaires were delivered and 475 were collected. There were 463 questionnaires available and the efficiency was 97.47%. The questionnaires include 3 parts: the basic information, the basic knowledge of AIDS and the knowledge, behavior and attitude of occupational exposure and the prevention of AIDS. Part 1 included work units, age, sex, level of education, work characteristics, type of work, department, the title etc. The basic knowledge of prevention of AIDS includes, the knowledge of prevention and how to get the knowledge, the reservoir of infection, the route of transmission, the herd susceptibility and the treatment of HIV. Occupational risk factors, prevention(treatment) measures, and relevant laws and regulations etc. were contained in part 3. The database was established in Epi Data 3.1 software. All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS version 10.0 and the statistical method includes chi-square test.Results 49%(227/463) of the medical workers knew the reservoir of infection. 63.5%(294/463) believed that mosquitoes or other insects could not spread HIV. The correct proportion of awareness of AIDS expose was 47.8%. 29.6%(137/463)had contacted with HIV-positive persons. 68.9%(319/463) had stick injury experiences at work. 40.0%(185/463) of the medical workers had splashing blood or body fluids in the eyes, nose or mouth. The incidence of contacted HIV-positive persons were significantly different among medical personnel from different level hospitals, education levels, departments and work characteristics(P<0.05). The incidence of being punctured by sharp needle among medical personnel from different level hospitals, education levels, departments and work characteristics had statistically significant differences(P<0.05). Medical workers with different hospital levels, professional title and different department distribution had different incidence of having splashing blood or body fluids in the eyes(P<0.05).Conclusion The medical workers in Lu’an have poor knowledge about occupational exposure and a higher rate of being punctured by sharp needles. It is necessary to strengthen training to improve the knowledge about AIDS occupational exposure.