Percutaneous injuries among medical interns and their knowledge & practice of post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV

This was a prospective, questionnaire-based study to determine the incidence of percutaneous injury among medical interns in a tertiary care hospital in Punjab. The incidence of percutaneous injury among interns was found to be 157.89 per 100 person-years. Of 38 interns, 31 (81.6%) experienced a lot of anxiety with regard to their occupational risk of contracting HIV, 23 (60.5%) felt that there was no easy availability of materials in the wards to take universal precautions and 17 (44.7%) felt they were not well informed about what to do in case of an occupational exposure to HIV. 7.9% interns always took universal precautions with every patient. Lack of time, lack of materials and emergency situations were the major reasons why universal precautions were not taken at times. 12 out of 38 (31.6%)interns correctly knew when PEP should ideally be initiated.