Effectiveness of measures to prevent needlestick injuries among ...

3 Descriptive epidemiology of NSI
3 Descriptive epidemiology of NSI
The descriptive epidemiology of NSI is presented in two different forms, a literature
review and a summary of publicly available surveillance data.
3.1 Methods
3.1.1 Literature review
The initial literature pool contained 525 articles published in English and German
(none were published in French) that discussed some aspects of the descriptive epide-
miology of NSI. Because of the large amount of research completed in the last decade
and a half, and because many aspects of the epidemiology of needlestick injuries
have already been well-documented, this literature review focused mainly on pub-
lished summary papers. This review of the literature on the epidemiology of NSI is
meant to describe overall trends in NSI, as well as factors modifying the risk of NSI
among HCW, such as occupational group; medical specialty; and activity leading to
NSI.
3.1.2 International NSI surveillance
Reports from NSI surveillance systems in several European Union (EU) countries and
the United States (US) were publicly available via the internet (Table 3, see page 89).
Many of these reports were based on data collected using the Exposure Prevention
Information Network (EPINet), a software package developed and maintained at the
University of Virginia (US) specifically for tracking and reporting NSI. Because many
reports tended to be similarly formatted, we were able to compare the results of NSI
surveillance internationally. Not all data elements were reported or defined identically
by all users, however, and tracking periods varied by country, in some cases by several
years. It is also likely that some data elements and categories were defined differently
by the various user organizations, but documentation was inadequate to be certain.
We attempted to standardize definitions through the use of logical groupings for the
summary tables included here.
Report „Needlestick injuries“ 21