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1. Introduction
Because of the nature of their job, paramedics in particular, are exposed to a number of factors that may have a direct or indirect impact on the risk of an accident at work.
It is the professional responsibility of the rescuer to provide quick and efficient assistance. He/She is called in emergency and life-threatening conditions, and he goes to accidents and catastrophes. The rescuer’s task is to preserve, restore and maintain basic vital functions. Medical rescuers often work under the pressure of time, in stressful situations, take responsibility for the lives of patients, often alone in the face of danger [1]. The multitude of risk factors, and in particular exposure to extreme stressful events, make paramedics, alongside firefighters, vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder [2]. Risk factors in the work of medical rescuers include accidents at work, including ambulance accidents [3], but also droplet-related infections [4] and sharp injuries. In the case of percutaneous exposure, assessment of the occupational risk depends on the type of performed procedures which are, or are not likely, to involve the risk of a needlestick injury. It is important to determine whether the paramedic has regular contact with blood or other potentially infectious body fluids, whether he/she is at risk of needlestick injury (i.e., injury with needle or other contaminated sharp instrument), and whether the infection can be transmitted through the injured skin or mucous membranes, and what the frequency is of these risky situations. Leiss et al. showed that over 20% of U.S. paramedics are exposed to blood each year [5]. The risk of infection of the exposed person (from a single needlestick injury by a contaminated needle) is estimated to range between 10-30% for HBV [6] and 1.8-10% for HCV [7]. It is much higher than the risk of HIV infection, which for a single contact percutaneous puncture is assumed to be 0.3%, and for the exposure through the mucous membrane the corresponding number is 0.1% [4]. In 2000, worldwide, contaminated syringe needles caused 21.7 million cases of HBV, 2 million of HCV, and 260,000 cases of HIV infection [8,9]. Thus, considering that medical workers are exposed to infectious material, each healthcare facility should run a register of possible occupational exposures, and every hospital worker (not just...