Minding the Prevention Protocol for Blood-Borne Diseases via EM Residents

The emergency department (ED) is one of the high-risk places for blood-borne disease (BBD) transmission.

This study aimed to assess the rate of adherence to preventive measures (PM) against the blood-borne diseases via emergency medicine (EM) residents.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 80 emergency residents of an educational public hospital were observed with regard to abiding by the preventive measures from March to May 2010.

Cleaning blood tainted skin before phlebotomy or IV line preparation and hand washing before donning latex gloves achieved the maximum (88/150) and minimum (0/150) scores. The most observed barriers of PM were frequent attendance of patients (85%), work load (80%), and need to work rapidly (68%).

It seems that, the preventive instructions are not optimally respected by ERs possibly due to the crowded wards, high work load and the need to work rapidly