Preventing exposure of health care workers to bloodborne pathogens: the role of safety climate.

Details

• Personal Author:
  DeJoy DM ; Gershon RM ; Grosch JW ; Murphy LR
• Description:
  Objectives. This study sought to extend previous research on the role of safety climate in preventing occupational exposure of health care workers to blood borne pathogens, such as IDV and Hepatitis B. Safety climate can be defined as the shared perceptions of workers about the level of safety where they work. Our previous research found that safety climate predicted compliance with Universal Precautions (UP), a set of work practices developed in the U.S. to prevent occupational exposure to blood. The present study extended this research to also include actual workplace accidents or injuries that might involve occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Methods. Approximately 425 health care workers in a large urban hospital completed a questionnaire designed to measure demographic characteristics (e.g., tenure), safety climate, compliance with UP, and recent accidents/injuries possibly involving exposure to blood. Safety climate consisted of six dimensions: management support, job hindrances, feedback and training, personal protective equipment, conflict among co-workers, and cleanliness. Compliance with UP focused on how frequently respondents engaged in specific work practices (e.g., not recapping needles). Accidents/injuries were measured by asking respondents to report the number of needlestick injures, splashes, cuts, and other exposures that occurred during the previous six months. Stepwise multiple regression was conducted in which the six safety climate measures were used to separately predict compliance with UP and accidents/injuries, after first adjusting for demographic variables. Results. Results indicated that three safety climate dimensions (management support, job hindrances, and cleanliness) were significant predictors of compliance with UP, accounting collectively for 13% of the overall variance. For accidents/injures, only the climate dimension of job hindrances was a significant predictor, accounting for 4% of the overall variance. Conclusions. These findings indicate that a hospital's safety climate is a better predictor of UP compliance than it is of accidents/injuries that can lead to exposure to bloodborne pathogens. This may be partly due to the relatively low base rate associated with accidents/injuries. Another factor may be that compliance with UP involves behaviors that are under the control of the worker, whereas accidents/injuries can occur regardless of a worker's actions. The dimension of job hindrances appears especially critical since is was a significant predictor of both outcome measures. The finding that predictors of the two outcome measures, while overlapping, were not identical suggests that different interventions may be appropriate, depending on whether the focus is on increasing compliance with UP or on reducing the frequency of certain types of injuries/accidents.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Asbestos Dust Environmental Monitoring Occupational Health Preceptorship Safety
• Keywords:
  Accidents Blood Bloodborne Pathogens Demographic Characteristics Exposure Levels Health Care Personnel Health Care Workers Injuries Needlestick Injuries Personal Protective Equipment Questionnaires Risk Factors Safety Climate Safety Measures Safety Practices Safety Programs Training Work Environment Workers Work Practices

  More +
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DBBS - Division of Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  64-65
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047973
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the 7th Joint Science Symposium on Occupational Safety and Health, October 26-27 1998, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvania. Cincinnati, OH: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,1998 Oct; :64-65
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the 7th Joint Science Symposium on Occupational Safety and Health, October 26-27 1998, Hidden Valley, Pennsylvania
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:22d4085e3ed03f0e77cbba9a869336a4604aa7c85de4c1a7eec2399c5279847dbddbaf603869dd8147e95eaf409386b0c5f7bc0f3c7d6905c31f3e7e50af611c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181698/cdc_181698_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 47.63 KB ]