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The study aims to identify percutaneous injuries correlates in the nursing team from a Brazilian tertiary-care hospital. A case-control study was conducted from January 2003 to July 2004, including 200 cases and 200 controls. Cases and controls were paired by gender, professional category, and work section. To evaluate the relationship between potential risk/protective factors and the outcome, odds ratios were estimated, using multivariate logistic regression methods. The results shown six predictors of percutaneous injuries: "recapping needles" (OR 9.48; CI(95%): 5.29-16.96); "hours worked per week ≥ 50 hours" (OR 2.47; CI(95%): 1.07 -5.67); "years in nursing practice ≤ 5 years" (OR 6.70; CI(95%): 2.42-18.53); "work shift in night" (OR 2.77; CI(95%): 1.35-5.70); "low self evaluation of risk" (OR 10.19; CI(95%): 3.67 -28.32) and "previous percutaneous injuries" (OR 3.14; CI(95%): 1.80-5.48). The results support the recommendation of applying effective strategies to prevent percutaneous injuries in the nursing team working on tertiary-care institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]