Occupational accidents involving exposure to biological material by a Worker’s Health Sentinel Unit: 2.683 cases

Introduction
Background: The possible exposure to biological fluids is present among health care professionals in various work environments and can have serious consequences to worker’s health. Objective: To analyze the data on occupational accidents involving exposure to biological material by a Worker’s Heatlh Sentinel Unit – Curitiba (PR).

Methods
Exploratory, descriptive study with a quantitative approach which is based on data from the Notification System for Health Threat (SINAN-NET) between August 2006 and October 2009.

Results
During the period, 2,683 cases were reported of occupational accidents with exposure to biological material. The highest number of accidents occurred among women (82%), aged 20 to 40 years (71%), with lumen needle (56%) in percutaneous exposures (73%). The occupation of the victims was nursing assistant (30%), followed by nursing technicians (15%) and academics (10%). Despite the large number of accidents that occur daily, the majority (82%) did not require chemoprophylaxis for HIV, and was indicated immunoglobulin and hepatitis B vaccine at 3% and 8% of cases, respectively. On evolution, there was a high dropout rate from treatment (60%) and 37% were discharged without serologic conversion.

Discussion
As the number of accidents with biological material is increasing and with the implementation of new security features of regulatory norm (NR 32) for the use of sharps in the country, this work aims to generate data in order to assist in promotional activities of health care workers and serve as comparison to future statistics.