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Aim: This study aims to identify housekeepers' use of protective measures, provide data about hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) seroprevalences and HBV immunisation, and investigate blunt-penetrating injuries in patient care services, routine cleaning services and orderly services., Background: Hospitals have been described as hazardous work environments with an increase in HBV-HCV seroprevalences and blunt-penetrating object injuries. This situation creates great risks and hazards for housekeepers in their jobs., Design: Survey., Methods: The study population was housekeepers who work in university hospitals. A total of 824 housekeepers were surveyed by using a 20-item questionnaire. The questionnaire included the sociodemographic characteristics of housekeepers and the risk level of the unit employed. Blood samples were taken from the housekeepers., Results: Their mean age was 32.5 years. The majority of the housekeepers (52.5%) were women and graduates of primary school (51.1%). The mean length of employment was 2.6 years, 73% were working on medical/surgical units, 91.2% were working in routine cleaning and 70.9% had been injured with various blunt and penetrating objects while working in the hospital in the past six months. The obtained result for seroprevalence for HBV-HCV was 2.2%. Only 27.5% of the housekeepers had been immunised with Hepatitis B vaccine. A large percentage of housekeepers in this study had used universal precautions., Conclusion: This study showed high seroprevalence rates for HBV-HCV and blunt-penetrating object injuries in housekeepers. Therefore, more effort is necessary to increase the use of protective measures against HBV-HCV and blunt-penetrating object injuries in housekeepers., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Hospitals need to take protective measures and implement innovative educational and support programmes organised for specific groups of housekeepers.

Objective: To determine the effect of hospitalization in the internal disease clinics on nutrition variables., Methods: This study was a cohort-type study performed in the Internal Diseases Clinics, University Hospital in Turkey. We included 208 patients who were hospitalized in the Internal Diseases Clinics of the University between June and August 2003. The clinical nutrition parameters of all the patients were evaluated from anthropometric measurements and laboratory results at admission and discharge., Results: Of 208, 105 were females, and 103 were males. The average age was 57 +/- 13.5 (18-85) years. Average hospitalization period of the cases was 14 +/- 10 (1-73) days. While the average body weight at admission was 71.6 +/- 10.9 kg and it was found to be 70.7 +/- 1.3 kg at discharge (paired sample t test, p<0.001). We noted the statistically significant decrease in the body mass index, waist and hip measures, muscle-skin folds thickness, and body adipose mass (p<0.05). Decreases were observed in all the clinical parameters of laboratory test results of the patients indicating end products of fat, protein, and carbohydrate metabolism (p<0.05). It was observed that the demographic characteristics of the patients (age, gender, occupation, education, and so forth) did not affect the decrease in nutritional parameters (p>0.05)., Conclusion: It was observed that decreases occurred in all the nutrition parameters of the patients who were hospitalized in the internal diseases clinics. It is suggested that these decreases are related to entire fat, protein, and carbohydrate metabolism. Nutritional parameters of patients should be followed during hospitalization with the purpose of preventing regression in nutrition parameters.