The Effect of Consonant Positional Context on Phonemic Substitution among Non-Native Learners of Arabic in a Multilingual Environment: A Field Study on Indian Learners

Abstract

Needlestick and sharps injuries remain among the most important occupational hazards facing nurses because they cause immediate tissue injury, recurrent psychological stress, and potential exposure to hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and other blood-borne pathogens. This study aimed to estimate the burden of occupational needlestick and sharps injuries among nurses in four governmental teaching hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen, and to describe the devices involved, injury circumstances, reporting behavior, post-exposure management, hepatitis B vaccination status, and institutional measures related to safe sharps disposal. A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in 2023 among 300 nurses selected by proportional allocation and systematic random sampling. Data were collected using a validated self-administered questionnaire that assessed exposure during the previous 12 months, cumulative injury counts, device categories, procedural and environmental circumstances, official reporting, post-exposure care, disposal practices, safety-container availability, and hepatitis B vaccination. Of the 300 participants, 268 (89.3%) reported at least one contaminated or potentially contaminated sharps injury during the preceding year, and a total of 3,382 injuries were reported, including 2,321 needlestick injuries and 1,061 injuries from other sharps. Injection needles were the most common devices involved, while recapping, bending, or breaking needles, inattention, and intravenous medication preparation emerged as the leading circumstances. Underreporting was substantial: 63.4% of exposed nurses had never officially reported their injuries, and 68.7% reported receiving no post-exposure healthcare. Hepatitis B vaccination coverage was also critically low, with only 20.7% reporting any vaccination and only 8.0% completing a three-dose schedule. Furthermore, exploratory inferential analysis revealed a modest but statistically significant sex difference in sharps-specific knowledge scores in favor of women (p=0.018), alongside age- and experience-related variations in general standard-precaution practices.  Overall, the findings indicate that occupational sharps injury in these teaching hospitals represents a major institutional safety problem that requires integrated reporting pathways, timely post-exposure services, improved vaccination coverage, standardized point-of-use sharps-disposal infrastructure, and stronger institutional accountability.