 Significance of the Problem Needle stick injuries and cuts are the common occupational accidents exposing health care workers to blood and body fluids. These preventable injuries expose workers to over 20 different blood borne pathogens and result in an estimated 1000 infections per year. The most common being hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and human immune deficiency virus.1 Even in developed countries, needle stick injuries are frequent among nurses due to their neglect in safety practices. India is a developing country with scarcity of skilled human resources in hospitals; nurses are exposed to needle stick injuries due to work load, lack of knowledge regarding preventive practices and fatal diseases. 2 Knowledge is a necessity in prevention and control of needle stick injuries. Thus the investigator felt the need to take up the study to assess the knowledge of staff nurses regarding needle stick injury, so that effective measures can be taken as required and thus reduce cross contamination of diseases not only from patients to nurses but also from nurses to patients too.  Objectives  Assess the knowledge of staff nurse regarding prevention of needle stick injury  To find association between knowledge regarding prevention of needle sticks injury and selected socio – demographic factors.  Hypothesis H1:- There is a significant association between levels of knowledge of staff nurse regarding prevention of needle stick injury with their selected socio-demographic variables.  Methods and Material A descriptive approach with a descriptive design was used for the study. The researcher himself developed a questionnaire on prevention of needle stick injury among the staff nurses. The tool was validated by nine experts. Reliability of the knowledge tool (r= 0.86 ) was tested by split half technique with application of pearson’s and spearman Brown’s prophecy formula. The data is collected using structured closed ended selfadministered questionnaire. Data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The description of socio-demographic variables and level of knowledge of staff nurses regarding prevention of needle stick injury was done by frequency distribution, percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation and the association between knowledge and socio demographic variables was found by chi square test.  Result Percentage wise distribution of sample showed that 56% of subjects were between 26- 30 years of age, 34% were 22-25 years of age, 8% were 31-35 years of age and remaining 2% were between 36-40 years of age. 40% were males and 60% were females. Most of them had (88%) educational qualification of GNM, 8% had Post Basic BSc Nursing and remaining 4% Basic BSc Nursing. 42% had 4-6 years of experience as Staff nurse, 40% had 1-3 years experience, 16% had 7-9 years of experience and only 2% had 10-11 year of experience.74% of study subjects sustained 1 time needle stick injury, 26% had 2-4 times of experience of needle stick injury. Assessment of knowledge reveals that out of 50 subjects 42% had average knowledge followed by 58% had poor knowledge regarding needle stick injury. The study reveals that overall mean knowledge score was 11.48 and SD was 2.62. Chi square test was conducted to find the association between level of knowledge and socio-demographic factors. The findings reveal that there was no significant association between the knowledge and selected demographic variable of staff nurses like, age, educational status, Experience of needle stick injury. Whereas there was a significant association found between the knowledge and selected demographic variable of staff nurses: years of experience as staff nurse. Thus H1:- There is a significant association between levels of knowledge of staff nurses regarding prevention of needle stick injury with their selected socio-demographic variable was accepted.  Interpretation and Conclusion The present study had been supported by a series of other studies which confirmed that knowledge regarding needle stick injury among staff nurse in the Vani Vilas hospital was average and this needs to be improved through organizing various educational programs.

Keywords : PTP: NSI: Needle stick injury, Knowledge, Staff nurse.