Reproductive toxicology. Oxalic acid.

Background: We conducted an assessment of knowledge about blood borne pathogens (BBP) and use of universal precautions at first level care facilities (FLCF) in two districts of Pakistan. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey and selected three different types of FLCFs ; public, general practitioners and unqualified practitioners through stratified random sampling technique. At each facility, we interviewed a prescriber, a dispenser, and a housekeeper for knowledge of BBPs transmission and preventive practices, risk perception, and use of universal precautions. We performed multiple linear regression to assess the effect of knowledge score (11 items) on the practice of universal precautions score (4 itemsuse of gloves, gown, needle recapping, and HBV vaccination). Results: We interviewed 239 subjects. Most of the participants 128 (53%) were recruited from general practitioners clinics and 166 (69.5%) of them were dispensers. Mean (SD) knowledge score was 3.8 (2.3) with median of 4. MBBS prescribers had the highest knowledge score while the housekeepers had the lowest. Mean universal precautions use score was 2.7 ± 2.1. Knowledge about mode of transmission and the work experience alone, significantly predicted universal precaution use in multiple linear regression model (adR2 = 0.093). Conclusion: Knowledge about mode of transmission of blood borne pathogens is very low. Use of universal precautions can improve with increase in knowledge. Background Health care workers are at a high risk of needle stick injury (NSI) and blood borne pathogens (BBP)[1]. According to a World Health Organization estimate, in year 2002, sharp injuries resulted in 16,000 hepatitis C virus (HCV), 66,000 hepatitis B virus (HBV) and 1000 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in health-care workers worldwide[2]. Recapping, disassembly, and inappropriate Published: 24 July 2007 BMC Infectious Diseases 2007, 7:81 doi:10.1186/1471-2334-7-81 Received: 28 January 2007 Accepted: 24 July 2007 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/7/81 © 2007 Janjua et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.