Sharp injuries in Japanese operating theaters of HIV/AIDS referral hospitals 2009–2011

The aim of this study was to identify how doctors and nurses experienced sharps injuries in operating rooms and the risks for these injuries by analyzing data from 78 Japanese hospitals participating in the nationwide EPINet surveillance system. The years of professional experience of the cases were classified into tertiles separately for doctors and nurses. Suture needles accounted for 54.9% of injuries in doctors and 48.3% of injuries in nurses. Among doctors, injuries occurred most frequently during the use of an item (range: 58.1–64.3%), while among nurses, injuries occurred most frequently (range: 24.7–29.0%) between steps of a multi-step procedure. The frequency of injury by a suture needle held by someone else was 41.1–47.3% (range) among doctors, and 27.0–48.1% (range) among nurses. In conclusion, sharps injuries in the operating room need to address the circumstances of injury and holder of devices based on the specific risk for doctors and nurses to decrease the number of injuries.