Safety measures between reality and intentions among nursing students regarding needle stick injuries

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe safety measures between reality and intentions among nursing students regarding needle stick injuries.Methods: Research Design: descriptive study cross sectional design. Setting: The study was carried out at three setting as the following: Faculty of Nursing, Institute of Nursing, School of Nursing at Menofia University, Menofia Governorate, Egypt. Subjects: 150 student nurses were included in the study. Tools for data collection: Interviewing questionnaire comprised of two sections: Demographic information, questionnaire regarding; mechanism of a needle stick injury the nursing students if present, at which stage needle injury occurs and reasons for not reporting that injury from student’s point of view, and safety injection checklist for assessing injection practices among injection providers.Results: Majority of studied sample were female mostly injured at outpatient clinic, medical department. Injury occurred mainly during IV injection, followed by IM injection and recapping needle. The majority of studied subject perceived that the reason of injury of needle stick injury were excitement and fear of Punishment and low grade during evaluation was the most common cause for non- reporting injury of needle stick injuries. Safety Injection Checklist for assessing injection practices among injection providers; showed 18% of study group were unsatisfied practiced while 100% of 3rd group showed satisfied practice.Conclusions: Increasing the awareness about the importance of reporting needle stick injuries is cardinal intervention to take adequate preventive measures for safety and continuous training and awareness program on injection safety to all the student nurses is a necessity for reducing the unsafe practices.