Objective  To examine the situation of blood-borne occupational exposure and measures to prevent and control the exposure among medical staff in a tertiary general hospital from 2015 to 2018.

  Methods  We collected all case reports of medical staff on blood-borne occupational exposure events registered from 2015 through 2018 in the management information system of a tertiary general hospital in Chongqing city and analyzed the data with descriptive statistics retrospectively.

  Results  During the 4-year period, totally 248 person-times of blood-borne occupational exposure were reported among the staff, with an accumulated incidence rate of 8.71% and downward trend in yearly incidence rate. The reported incidence rate of blood-borne occupational exposure was higher among the nurses than among the doctors (10.22% vs. 6.47%) and higher among the female staff than among the male staff (9.56% vs. 6.28%); the reported incidence rate of blood-borne occupational exposure was inversely correlated with the years of professional work among the staff; and higher incidence rate of blood-borne occupational exposure was reported by the staff working in surgery department. For all the reported blood-borne occupational exposures, more than one-third (39.11%) occurred between 8 : 00 – 12 : 00 in the morning of a day and nearly one-third (29.03%) occurred between 13 : 00 – 17 : 00 in the afternoon of a day. The majority (65.32%) of the reported blood-borne occupational exposures were due to needle or sharp instrument injury and 25.40% of the exposures occurred during injection or blood sampling operations. Finger was the most frequently reported body part injured in 79.03% of the blood-borne occupational exposures. More than a half (52.42%) of the staff with blood-borne occupational exposures did not wear gloves or goggles when the exposures occurred; 52.02% and 31.45% of the staff reporting the exposures attributed the exposures to the lack of standardized management on sharp instruments and accidental operations. Of all the reported blood-borne occupational exposures, 28.63% and 25.00% were involved in probable infection of hepatitis B and C virus; 91.53% were immediately dealt with local disinfection and 78.23% with follow-up detection for potential infections.

  Conclusion  In a tertiary general hospital, nurses, female staff, the staff with short working years and working in surgery department are at a high risk of blood-borne occupational exposure and the main potential hazard of the exposures occurred is hepatitis B virus infection.