Background: The most effective means of reducing health care associated hepatitis infection is to prevent the blood and body fluid exposures (BBFE). However, under-reporting of accidents is evading the issue of occupational protection among health care workers . It is advised to encourage routine BBFE reporting program and to take control strategies accordingly. The study aimed to survey the levels of BBFE in the major teaching hospital, and to evaluate the potential effects of various ongoing measures during this intervention period of time.

Methods: At a 2,200-bedded tertiary referral hospital center, we organized a task group in 2006, conducting a prospective interventional study based on the respectively causal analyses. We analyzed incidences by hospitalized inpatient days (IPD), full-time equivalent employees (FTE), and occupied beds (OB), and patterns of BBFE related to jobs, places, tasks, & steps involved with the device use, comparing the differences with Chi-square (x²) for trend tests.

Results: There were 1,769 BBFE in 5 years with the incidence of 17.0-13.7/ 100OB per annum overall, and the significantly decreasing trend overall (p=0.028) and especially noted among nurses (p=0.019). Using index of IPD, a significant reducing trend (p<0.001) in the overall BBFE mostly appeared after the use or before the disposal (p=0.001), and during disposal of devices (p=0.017). A non-significantly increasing incidence trend of BBFE by index of FTE was observed among interns (p=0.484), but their incidence of BBFE due to percutaneous injection (-6.7/ 100FTE), and after use & before disposal of the device (-2.2/ 100FTE) were reduced.

Conclusion: The team effort has monitored and controlled the BBFE effectively. Engineering control, pre & post occupational tailored trainings and on-site continuous education are most crucial, especially for the vulnerable subgroups. Continual collaborative promotion with authority supports and prudent interpretation of indices are also indispensable.