Addressing Police Occupational Safety during an Opioid Crisis: The Syringe Threat and Injury Correlates (STIC) Score

Objective:To develop and validate syringe threat and injury correlates (STIC) score to measure police vulnerability to needlestick injury (NSI).Methods:Tijuana police officers (N = 1788) received NSI training (2015 to 2016). STIC score incorporates five self-reported behaviors: syringe confiscation, transportation, breaking, discarding, and arrest for syringe possession. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between STIC score and recent NSI.Results:Twenty-three (1.5%) officers reported NSI; higher among women than men (3.8% vs 1.2%; P = 0.007). STIC variables had high internal consistency, a distribution of 4.0, a mode of 1.0, a mean (sd) of 2.0 (0.8), and a median (interquartile range [IQR]) of 2.0 (1.2 to 2.6). STIC was associated with recent NSI; odds of NSI being 2.4 times higher for each point increase (P-value <0.0001).Conclusions:STIC score is a novel tool for assessing NSI risk and prevention program success among police.