Frequency of vaccine-related and therapeutic injections --Romania.

This paper presents a summary of the survey conducted in Romania to estimate the frequency of therapeutic injections and to describe the attitudes and practices of adults in using injections to administer medications. A cluster sample of 300 households in each of the four viral hepatitis sentinel surveillance districts in the country was surveyed totaling 1200 households. Relevant data were collected through interviews with the 3676 survey participants. Overall results indicate that a substantial proportion of adults preferred injected medication for treatment of conditions for which injections generally are not indicated. Since this proportion did not exceed 42% it is suggested that Romanians may not insist on injectable medications for common illnesses. Because knowledge about and sufficient resources for proper infection-control practices for safe injections are limited in the country overuse of therapeutic injections increases opportunities for blood-borne pathogen transmission among patients. Thus programs to improve injection safety should focus on reducing the number of therapeutic injections administered.