: There are over 8 million health care workers (HCW in the U.S. and approximately 600,000-1 million needlesticks occur resulting in 1000 new cases of HIV, HBV, HCV among HCW. Recent increases in the rate of needlestick/sharp injuries and exposure to bloodborne pathogens has been reported to be greater than 50 percent in HCW who work in the operating room (OR) as compared to other HCW in other settings. Most important, 22 percent of all needlestick injuries have been reported by surgical personnel with 33 percent of the injuries occurring in the surgical field, 25 percent occurring at the surgical site, 59 percent occurring with the non-dominant hand. An alternating block design (four six month blocks) is proposed to: 1) investigate the factors associated with needlestick/sharp injury during a surgical episode and 2) to evaluate specific surgical factors (length of surgery, surgical instrumentation, handedness, use of indicator gloves for needlestick/sharp injury, sequence of surgical cases) that impact on the rate of traumatic (needlestick/sharp) injury among HCW during surgery. During a 24-month data collection period all operating room personnel involved in the study will be trained to use an indicator glove and medical devices (blunt suture needles and retractable scalpels) engineered to reduce the rate of needlestick/sharp injuries. Data will be collected by circulating room nurses for type of surgery, HCW identification, role of HCW, surgical instruments used during a surgical episode, and numbers of glove changes during the episode. Following the surgical event, all gloves will be collected, visually inspected for defects, cuts, and holes and tested for barrier integrity via the standardized FDA waterleak test method (1000cc/2 min.). Multivariate analysis will be conducted and logistic regression to determine the factors predictive of needlestick/sharp injuries to OR personnel.
