Prevalence and Knowledge of Needle-stick and Sharps Injury Among the Dental Students at Mahatma Gandhi Mission's Dental College and Hospital, Navi Mumbai, India

Objectives: The study was designed to determine the prevalence in terms of cases and episodes, procedures, risk factors, knowledge of needle-stick injury (NSI) and sharps injury among the dental students and to make recommendations to the Institutional authorities for decreasing such injuries.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the dental students during their clinical training at MGM Dental College students from May 2012 to July 2012. The proposal, including ethical views was approved by the Ethics Committee of MGM University of Health Sciences. The study consisted of a self-administered questionnaire adapted from a previous survey instrument with a one year recall period of the injury. An informed consent was obtained from all the participants.
The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test with statistical package for social sciences, SPSS, version 17. Alpha was set at 5% level.
Results: The questionnaire was completed by 306 surveyed students of which 277 were undergraduate and 29 were postgraduate dental students. 75.4% students had experienced NSI/sharps injury with the highest (37.6%) being among the interns. 42.9% of the injuries occurred during recapping the needle. Post-exposure prophylaxis was not taken by 61% of the students and majority (83.1%) had not reported the incident.
Conclusions: The risk associated with NSI/sharps injury among the dental students is high and the knowledge on prevention and management is low. Therefore, the institutional authority should lay emphasis on clinical training about handling and disposal of sharps along with educational interventions on post-exposure prophylaxis.