Needlestick injuries: a prickly need for improving prevention

Methods The Infectious Diseases Unit at Bolzano Hospital is the point of reference for all NI occurring inand outside the hospital within the sanitary district (approx. 215,000 inhabitants). For each case noticed, a record form is drawn up by nurses, who take care of registration and demographics, occupation of the worker involved, timing of NI, and by physicians thereafter, who record cause of the accident and causal device, and manage potential exposure to bloodborne pathogens. All notified cases of NI occurring from 2003 to 2010 were recorded and analyzed.