Risk of self-inoculations in clinical veterinarians

Abstract

Abstract: 

Working in inadequate facilities and the special nature of their patients contribute to the fact that veterinarians suffer frequent occupational accidents with hypodermic needles. Our objective was to explore the factors associated with self-inoculations in veterinarians of the Province of Tucumán. A cross-sectional study was carried out using an anonymous structured questionnaire in 210 professionals chosen at random. The risk factors analyzed were age, years in veterinary practice, gender, type of practice, hours worked/day and minimum number of patients attended/day. Continuous variables were compared using Pearson's correlation coefficient and subsequently transformed into dichotomous variables using the medians as the cut-off point. After screening with χ2, the independent variables with P˂0.05 were offered to logistic regression models. Respondents were 39.3±9.5 years old and they had 13.5±9.1 years of professional experience. Both variables were highly correlated (r= 0.94; P<0.001) so only the second one was included in the analysis. Almost half (48.1%) of the respondents were female, 15.7% worked with large animals, 62.9% with small species and the remaining 21.4% in both practices. Clinicians worked 8.5±2.6 hours/day, attending on average a minimum of 10.2±8.6 patients/day. The presence of women was more frequent in small animal practice (P˂ 0.001) and among professionals who graduated more recently (P= 0.018). More than half (51.4%) had accidentally injected various substances. In the bivariate analysis, the practice with large animals (P= 0.040), the longest professional experience (P= 0.027), the male gender (P= 0.006) and the highest number of patients attended/day (P= 0.047) were significantly associated with the frequency of respondents who had self-inoculated during clinical practice. In the multivariate analysis, only professionals who worked with large animals (OR= 3.56; 95%CI 1.25-10.11; P= 0.017) and those who attended the largest number of patients/day (OR= 2.36; 95%CI 1.26-4.41; P= 0.007) remained in the model. The practice with large animals implies taking care of patients with a large body mass and potential aggressiveness that make handling a difficult task. The latter and the high number of animals cared for per day, contributed to the risk of self-inoculations.