Does a Strong Safety Climate Protect Home Care and Hospice Nurses from Blood Exposure

In order to determine the association between safety climate and blood exposure in a population of home care/hospice nurses, a mail survey was conducted in 2006 in North Carolina, USA. Safety climate, defined as employees' shared perceptions regarding safety within their work organization, was examined according to level of use of safety-engineered medical devices and personal protective equipment (PPE), work experience, type of employment, and characteristics of the work environment. The adjusted response rate was 69%. The overall exposure rate was 27.4 per 100,000 home visits. Nurses who had a weak safety climate had nearly 2 times the risk of total blood exposure and twice the risk of needlestick as nurses who had a strong safety climate. Similar relationships were found for safety climate by use of safety devices and PPE, work experience, type of employment, and characteristics of the work environment. The author concluded that safety climate appears to be associated with reduced blood exposure among home care and hospice nurses. Safety climate may be among the factors that management can strengthen in order to reduce home care/hospice nurses' risk of blood exposure.