Introduction Our study was conducted to describe prevalence and risk factors for occupational exposure to blood and body fluids (BBF) among nurses and to evaluate their knowledge, attitude and practices concerning blood-borne pathogens and adherence to universal safety precautions.

Methods From March 2016 to October 2016, we’ve conducted a survey amongst nurses working at Ibn Rochd University Hospital of Casablanca. The questionnaire recorded socio demographic characteristics, information about working experience, questions assessing knowledge about blood-borne pathogens, the action to be taken after an accident and questions about standard precautions.

Results We had 110 respondents, 74,5% have been working for more than a year, 58,3% never had training courses about occupational exposure to BBF and 40,4% had already experienced at least once in their working life an accident exposing them to BFF. Of those, only 7 reported the accident at every time. Only 9%, 6,3% and 9,9% knew the respective seroconversion rates for HBV, HCV and HIV and 37,6% admitted never hearing about universal precautions.

Discussion Overall, participants’ knowledge about BBF exposure accidents was inadequate. we also found that some participants did not know about the right procedures to take after being exposed. We thought that this can be placed on the lack of information, so we’ve decided to conduct this survey before and after an informational course that we’ve organised at the occupational health department. Unfortunately, we couldn’t gather enough data after the course because of the lack of respondents.

Conclusion Health care workers should be made aware of the risks of infection they may acquire from these accidents by educating them while they’re still students. Additional educational courses should be provided at a regular basis to enhance the awareness and help the workers stay up to date. HBV vaccination should be encouraged for nurses before taking any practical training.