The effect of the sharp injury preventive model for nurses in handling sharp instrument

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a sharp injury preventive model for the operating room nurses. The setting was a 2000-bed medical center in which there are 2000 operations performed per month. Under a quasi -experimental design, a sharp injury preventive model was implemented for six months. There were pre-test and post- test evaluation results. The instrument of evaluation was a structured questionnaire, including knowledge, skill and attitude toward injury prevention, which were tested using content validity and compared with the frequency of sharp injury for criterion-related validity. Cronbach's α was .82 , and test-retest reliability was .89. The results showed that the scores of knowledge and skill evaluation tests significantly improved after implementation of the sharp injury preventive model. However, the evaluation scores on attitude did not show significant improvement. Most of the improvement in knowledge and skill concerned the negligence in everyday routines. The improvement in attitude showed in the greater confidence of the nurses in sharp injury prevention. The correlation was . 274 between attitude and skill, and .412 between attitude and knowledge, respectively were significant. However, the correlation between attitude and skill was not significant. We found a positive correlation between skill and age, but negative correlation between knowledge and age. According to the data, we suggested that hospital administration should set up preventive model, and continuously monitor the knowledge, skill and attitude of the nurses in the prevention of injury due to sharp instruments.