Awareness and adherence to blood borne infections among surgeons.

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of current study is to document the awareness and how much health care personnel remain adherent to the precautionary measures against blood borne infections during surgical procedures in their respective fields. Study Design: Descriptive Cross Sectional study. Setting: Surgical and Allied Department of various Government and Private Hospitals of Karachi. Material & Methods: The questionnaire was self-designed and self-explanatory, having Cronbach’s-alpha score of 0.72. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS version 22. Result: Majority of female doctors 67.2%, were participated in the study while looking over the departments, 41% were from surgical department while 22.4% from gynae and obstetrics. Out of the 134 doctors 64.2% of the doctors had needle prick during some time in their career. Considering specifically the protective measures taken by doctors against BBI, about 23.9 % preferred only double gloving. Looking over the vaccination history, majority of the doctors about 97% had vaccinated themselves against Hepatitis B and 87.3% had also tested for HbsAg and Anti HCV. Following prick injury 54.5% of the doctors had their HbsAg antibody titer checked and 33% had the viral markers checked. Conclusion: Blood born infections are not very uncommon in surgical procedures. Current study concluded that doctors are not adopting the preventive measures including use of gowns, double gloves, protective eye-wear and safe handling of sharp instruments during surgery.