Experiences of the University of the Western Cape student nurses who sustain needle-stick injuries during their clinical placement

Abstract

An estimated 12 billion injections are administered annually worldwide and result in two million needle sticks each year in health workers. Needle-stick injuries occur worldwide on a daily basis. These injuries are traumatic experiences which if not handled correctly may have devastating psychological effects on the student nurse. The researcher proposed to explore the lived experiences of student nurses in the undergraduate programme at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town, who had sustained needle-stick injuries during their clinical placement to uncover the meaning that these lived experiences had to the student nurses. The researcher, through her clinical supervision of the BCur undergraduate nursing students at the School of Nursing (SoN), University of the Western Cape (UWC) suspected that needle stick injuries sustained by student nurses are being mismanaged in the service settings and that the phenomenon of a needle-stick injury had far reaching emotional and physical effects on the student nurse. In this study a qualitative phenomenological approach was used because the researcher identified it as the most appropriate method to do this study. The population under study was the student nurses studying towards their BCur nursing degree at the SoN at the UWC.