Prevention of Needle-Stick Injuries in Healthcare Facilities: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVETo estimate the summary effectiveness of different needle-stick injury (NSI)-prevention interventions.DESIGNWe conducted a meta-analysis of English-language articles evaluating methods for reducing needle stick, sharp, or percutaneous injuries published from 2002 to 2012 identified using PubMed and Medline EBSCO databases. Data were extracted using a standardized instrument. Random effects models were used to estimate the summary effectiveness of 3 interventions: training alone, safety-engineered devices (SEDs) alone, and the combination of training and SEDs.SETTINGHealthcare facilities, mainly hospitalsPARTICIPANTSHealthcare workers including physicians, midwives, and nursesRESULTSFrom an initial pool of 250 potentially relevant studies, 17 studies met our inclusion criteria. Six eligible studies evaluated the effectiveness of training interventions, and the summary effect of the training intervention was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.50–0.89). The summary effect across the 5 studies that assessed the efficacy of SEDs was 0.51 (95% CI, 0.40–0.64). A total of 8 studies evaluated the effectiveness of training plus SEDs, with a summary effect of 0.38 (95% CI, 0.28–0.50).CONCLUSIONTraining combined with SEDs can substantially reduce the risk of NSIs.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol2015;36(7):823–829