POTENTIAL RISK OF OCCUPATIONAL BLOOD HAZARDS AMONG STUDENTS AT THE HEALTH COLLEGES IN PRINCESS NOURAH BINT ABDULRAHMAN UNIVERSITY

Introduction: Clinical trainee students are potentially at high risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens because of their underestimation of the risk of blood exposure and limited clinical experience. Aim of work: To assess the potential risk among health colleges’ students at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) regarding occupational blood hazards (OBHs), to determine the frequency of their exposure to OBHs incident during their clinical training and to assess their awareness towards potential risks of blood hazards, vaccination, and safety measures. Materials and methods: A questionnaire based on a cross-sectional study was carried out among 565 clinical trainee students of health colleges from December 2017 to March 2018. Results: The majority (83%) of the students had poor knowledge score. More than half of them did not receive any educational material or even orientation on standard precautions. Almost half of them had received HBV vaccine. Nearly 11% of them stated that they had been exposed to incident of blood hazards at least once duringtheir clinical practice, whereas only 7.6% of them reported the incident to their corresponding institute. Conclusion and recommendations: The study showed that there was inadequate knowledge of the students and their non-compliance with safety measures which necessitate the needs for effective curricular and extracurricular program with systemic evaluation of students about potential risk of occupational blood hazards. Further post educational clinical trial survey as well as direct observational study is needed