Nursing staff’s knowledge about the occupational risk of infection by the HIV

Abstract

The essay is about the presentation and discussion of results of a study developed with 73 nursing professionals in a hospital in Santa Catarina’s west region, with the objective of identifying knowledge, attitude and behavior of these professional towards the occupational risk of contamination by HIV. The research, of a quantitative genre, was developed from April to October, 2002, and the data was collected through a form containing open and closed questions. After retrieval, the data was organized in tables and considered following the reviewed literature. It can be observed a majority of female professional, ranging from 20 to 30 years of age and with less than 10 years of professional work. 88% of sampled professionals know that they are in a risk intesity that varies from moderate to maximum and present themselves as aware to the risk of being contaminated by the HIV virus; 96% recognize the procedure of vein puncturing as the most risky. More than 80% showed knowledge of the precaution standard-measures and of the procedures in caso of exposition to biological material. It was verified that 40% of the population had already physical contact, without protection, with blood and 68% got hurt with puncturing-cutting material, which allows the presumption that, although with the proper knowledge, not all of the them make use of the protective measures. Through the research results it can be verified that most interviewees had enough information to protect themselves, however, a portion of them was still exposing themselves to risky situations.