Occupational Medicine & Health Affairs
Open Access

Research Article

Occupational Infections among Health Care Workers in a Secondary Care Hospital Saudi Arabia

¹Department of Adult Infectious Diseases, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

²Public Health and Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine Menoufiya University, Egypt

³Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, Benisuif University, Egyp

⁴Public Health Departments, Alex University, Egyp

*Corresponding Author:

Mervat M El Dalatony
MD of Industrial Medicine and Occupational Health
Public Health and Community Medicine Department,
Menoufiya University, Egypt
Tel: +966-11-212-5555-2706
Fax: +966-11-212-4261
E-mail: mervat.moh.abd@gmail.com

Received date: September 25, 2013; Accepted date: October 24, 2013; Published date: November 13, 2013

Citation: Assiri AM, Hathout HM, Anwar MM, El Dalatony MM, Abdel Kader NM (2013) Occupational Infections among Health Care Workers in a Secondary Care Hospital Saudi Arabia. Occup Med Health Aff 1: 137. doi: 10.4172/2329-6879.1000137

Copyright: © 2013 Assiri AM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are frequently exposed to various infectious agents while performing their duties and many accidental exposures to blood borne and air borne pathogens are preventable if health care workers comply with appropriate precautions. Objectives: Assessment of some occupational exposure among health care workers in a secondary care hospital- Najran province- Saudi Arabia during the period (2009-2012). Subjects and methods: Retrospective review of health care workers’ (HCWs) records from staff health clinic to determine the distribution of occupational infections among different job categories which was confirmed by clinical manifestations, laboratory investigations and reports of needle stick incidents to which HCWs were exposed during period of data collection. Results: The most common occupational infection among healthcare workers was chicken pox. There was low Tuberculin skin test (TST) conversion rate among different professional categories and nurses were the most affected occupational category during the study period as regard exposure to sharp injuries and air borne infections. Conclusions: Management policy and procedures should be directed and implemented to minimize and prevent occupational infections with emphasis on nurses as being the highly affected risk group.

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