[Table/Fig-2]:

Methodological characteristics of the reviewed studies.

No	Author	Methodology	Samples	Country	Results
1	Smith et al., [22]	Descriptive-exploratory	509 nurses	China	Nurses who reported their departments were understaffed were more likely to suffer needlestick injuries than nurses who told their departments were sufficiently staffed. Nurses who worked mixed shifts were more likely to sustain NSIs than those who did not.
2	Nsubuga and Jaakkola [9]	Descriptive	526 nurses and midwives	Africa	Lack of training was the most important risk factor for needlestick injuries; working for more than 40 h/week, replacing needle caps most of the time, and not wearing gloves when working with needles.
3	Lotfi and Gashtasbi [21]	Cross-sectional study	90 health center personnel	Iran	Important risk factor for needlestick injuries was working night shifts; other important risk factors included lack of training on such injuries, number of patients attended daily or nightly and recapping needles.
4	Rampal et al., [25]	Cross-sectional study	345 health care workers	Malaysia	Staff nurses suffered the highest prevalence. The causes of needlestick injuries were mainly replacing needle caps. Majority said that they dispose of needles or sharp devices instantly after use in sharp bins, most of them did not separate needles from syringes before throwing away and did not dissemble needles or sharps with hand and restore needle caps after use.
5	Bijani [26]	Cross-sectional study	246 nurses	Iran	Independent risk factors for needlestick injuries were recapping used needles habitually and consecutive shift works.
6	Habib et al., [27]	Cross-sectional study	216 nurses selected by convenience random sampling	Pakistan	Most injury causing instruments and needlestick injuries were reported at bedside and wards, the professionals did not participate in any educational sessions, seminars or workshops related to needlestick injuries during their job.
7	Martins et al., [28]	Cross-sectional study	363 health care workers	North Portugal	The major risk factor was working in health services for more than 10 years. Another important associated factor was being over 39 years old.
8	Parsa-Pili et al., [33]	Cross-sectional study	97 health care workers	Iran	A significant association was observed between the risk of needlestick injury and age, gender, work experience of less than two years and education. The majority of needlestick injuries happened at the ICU and CCU.
9	Afridi et al., [34]	Cross-sectional study	497 health care workers	Pakistan	Factors which are found to be highly associated with needlestick injuries were experience of more than five years and working as nurse than doctor, working in surgical wards and being a female. Most repeatedly quoted cause of needlestick injuries was injecting medicine and drawing blood, followed by doing needle recapping by two hands.
10	Yenesew and Fekadu [24]	Cross-sectional study	317 health care professionals	Northwest Ethiopia	The reasons for job-related exposure to blood and body fluids were: the sudden movement of a patient during blood sampling or the intramuscular or venous injection of drugs during childbirth; during the handling of specimens; during recapping of specimens; during handling and collection of waste; and due to lack of personal protective equipment.
11	Ashat et al., [23]	Descriptive	107 health care workers	India	The major factor for the exposure was heavy patient load. Most injury instances happened during emergency care. The most conventional action after exposure was cleaning with spirit.