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Purpose: To investigate occupational exposures to biological material potentially infected by blood-borne viruses in nursing student population during the course years. Design and Methods: An observational retrospective study was designed. Data were collected in May 2007. Two-thousand-two-hundred-fifteen nursing students from the 3 years of degree course were enrolled in the four Italian universities. A structured questionnaire was constructed and was given out unannounced to nursing students in four universities on a randomly chosen day. The likelihood of association between nursing student exposure and certain assumed risk factors was measured. Findings: The exposure risk is associated with each study year of nursing students. Specifically, the probability of accidental exposure is reduced significantly with the increase of clinical skills during the training period. The risk for exposure in the 1st year students appears significantly higher than in those of the next years (odds ratio [OR] 1.465; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.105-1.943). Data highlighted a gradual increase of bio-safety knowledge in nursing students from the 1st to the 3rd years of study. However, a statistically significant association exists only between awareness of a correct use of gloves and exposure risk (OR 0.435; 95% CI 0.227-0.834). Mucocutaneous exposures are more frequent than percutaneous exposures (62.2%), and the hollow-bore needle is the device most often involved. In 42.5% of cases, accidental exposures occurred when nursing students are working alone in a medical ward or surgery area. Conclusions: During their clinical training, nursing students can encounter a real risk for percutaneous and mucocutaneous exposures to blood potentially infected with blood-borne viruses. However, this risk is reduced with an increase in clinical skills. Clinical Relevance: Results show that some new strategies are necessary for exposure risk reduction such as development of simulation laboratories for nursing practice and the adequate presence of tutors in clinical training education. Key words Needle-stick injuries, occupational exposure, nursing students, safety

Purpose: To investigate whether the number of nursing diagnoses on hospital admission is an independent predictor of the hospital length of stay. Design: A prospective observational study was carried out. A sample of 2,190 patients consecutively admitted (from July to December 2014) in four inpatient units (two medical, two surgical) of a 1,547‐bed university hospital were enrolled for the study. Methods: Data were collected from a clinical nursing information system and the hospital discharge register. Two regression analyses were performed to investigate if the number of nursing diagnoses on hospital admission was an independent predictor of length of stay and length of stay deviation after controlling for patients' sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender), clinical variables (disease groupers, disease severity morbidity indexes), and organizational hospital variables (admitting inpatient unit, modality of admission). Findings: The number of nursing diagnoses was shown to be an independent predictor of both the length of stay (β =.15; p <.001) and the length of stay deviation (β =.19; p <.001). Conclusions: The number of nursing diagnoses is a strong independent predictor of an effective hospital length of stay and of a length of stay longer than expected. Clinical Relevance: The systematic inclusion of standard nursing care data in electronic health records can improve the predictive ability on hospital outcomes and describe the patient complexity more comprehensively, improving hospital management efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]