Objective.

To evaluate the perception of biological risk in nursing staff working at a hospital in the city of Armenia-Colombia.

Methods.

The study applied the Dimensional Evaluation of Risk Perceived in Workplace (DERP-W) to evaluate risk attributes, with a descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional approach on a sample of 116 nurses and nursing assistants working at a hospital in the city of Armenia, Quindío.

Results.

When performing a mean analysis of each of the attributes, it was found that the majority of the sample perceives a high (33.6%) and medium high (29.3%) degree of knowledge of biological risk, as well as very high degree of fear of it (50.9% of those evaluated), and a very high degree of perception (30.2) to high degree of perception (23.3%) of being able to avoid a negative situation when exposed to biological risk.

Conclusion.

The workers of the hospital perceive that they have a good knowledge, while providing a perception of control of the circumstances surrounding biological risk, which could become overconfidence because many of the activities carried out at an institutional level are very frequent and can predispose to the mechanization of tasks and familiarity with risk, which are indispensable elements in managing unsafe actions that normally result in unwanted work events, such as work accidents.

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